The Last Disciple of Ansem the Wise
by ba'al turtledove
Summary: this is the story of the last disciple of Ansem the wise, his name is prosper, and he's not a keyblade wielder, he's not related to the major characters, all he has is sharp wit, an attitude and his magic on his quest to xehanort and the heartless. novel length! major plot elements from final fantasy games, and other square enix games, serious heaviness towards the end please read!


Heartless

"I hate heartless!" I summoned up my mana "blizzara!" A flash of light from my hands, two orbs of ice exploding from me in different paths spinning through the air before crashing together and shattering in an icy explosion resembling buckshot, it tore through the armored knight, it died in a puff of darkness and released it's hearts, I began chanting lines of spell like formulas and finall the heart was trapped, it drifted towards me and I ushered it into my pendant, it was a grayish metal in te jagged shape of a heart, a smaller concentric heart made of a thin blood red line glowed as it absorbed the hearts, it was a storage device, my personal creation based in ansem's designs if just killing the heartless releases their hearts back to darkness, then trapping them must be the better solution. But I didn't get to rest long, two sentinel heartless rose up over the wall "crap" they fired lasers and I summoned my shell, I was an exceptionally talented Mage for someone my age, but that doesn't mean I had mastered the barrier spell. Beside a shell worked just fine, for magic attacks... I dropped the shield and rolled towards them "fira!" I had rolled just beneath them, the fira materialized around me, two pumpkin sized globes of fire circuiting me and bashing themselves into the heartless. I repeated the process of storing their hearts and was about to go on my merry way when suddenly I was facing down a long blade that ended in a revolver, I back stepped out of direct range "what did you just do with those hearts!?" "Whoa there watch it with the sword someone could get hurt." "Tell me or this could get ugly." "I can't tell you-" he launched a fire spell at me I summoned my shell easily and it rolled off the red crystalline shield "a Mage?" "And a good one too, you shouldn't have messed with me!" I called on my magic again "blackout!" The tendrils of blindness magic shot from me in a field, they reached him and an inky blackness bubbles in front of his eyes "darkness magic?" "Not quite." He started swinging wildly though so rolled under his blade and got behind him, that's when I saw two girls rushing up the battlements to us, one wearing a long pink and white sundress and the other in a punk reject version of a ninja's outfit. "Leon! Are you okay?" "Aerith? No imnnot this guy uses darkness magic." She giggled "no silly it's just status magic, I don't sense any more darkness in him than the average person, in fact he's pretty pristine compared to you." She giggled and I saw her cast an esuna "crap support mages plus nasty swords, listen I'm not your enemy I just can't tell you why I'm doing what I'm doing." "What was he doing?" "He killed three heartless and when the hearts tried to escape he captured them." They looked stunned, which meant this would only get more and more difficult, "we should take him back to Merlin, he would know what to do." Leon nodded and ran his hand across his blade, "revolver drive!" In the blink of the eye he was a blue shinning meteor spinning at me, there wasn't nearly enough time to dodge safely so I summoned up my protect shield, he crashed into me , the shield held but we went crashing through the battlement wall and towards the street far below, I realized how nasty the fall would be "float!" In front of my path towards the ground appeared a glowing white seal, I crashed through it and suddenly all my momentum was gone, I dropped to the ground gracefully, well mostly a brick from the wall landed on my head and made me bite my tongue, I freaked out over that for a minute before looking around me, aside from the rubble I was standing in front of a very odd shaped house, Leon and the two women were at the wall looking down on me and then from the house emerged a girl with black hair and nasty looking brass knuckles, a man with blonde hair and a sick poking spear, and anothe enviro with black hair and some kind of boomerang on her wrist, with a dog at her side, "great, should I just assume your all with them?" I looked back at my original adversaries who had descended the wall and looked ready for round two "great six on one, which means I've got no choice... TRANCE!" The magic formulas necessary to mimic the transformation spiraled around me in the air, my black hair faded to a shimmering white, my skin taking on a neon purple sheen, my clothes literally reversing their color patterns and shining, the aesthetic effects weren't very shocking. But the sudden bloom of my magic and mana was well worth it, even in this form my combat magic might not be powerful enough, which left status magic "sleepga!" It was my only third tier spell that I could cast perfectly, I whorl of white filaments and wisps of light errupted from me as a chorus of lamb noises filled the air, it hit all six of them and then it was time for my ultimate level spell, "twilight!" I raised my hand and the orange liquid energy burst into existence but all of the sudden I heard someone about another spell and my mana drained to zero and my trance Time ran out, I looked stunned as the old man in blue who had emerged from the house "that spell would have reduced their mana and energy levels to zero correct?" "Yes because I had put them to sleep..." But the six were already sitting up emerging from their daze. "It was quiet and impressive strategy and the form that you entered in order to cast it. The formulas looked incredibly complex, who was your teacher." He stroked his long beard and I realized I knew who he was "pendragon... Your Merlin! I read one of your spell books!" He blushed hand lapped his hands to his cheeks "ah, I'm sure it wasn't very impressive, just the rambling of an old man, my work is usually only even brushed over by the most devoted of archaic scholars, you must have had an exceptional teacher." I nodded more comfortable now "it's an honor to meet you and yes I did, that's actualy why I am here, my master was exiled, and this was his kingdom, but for all the times he told me about the illustrious radiant garden I didn't expect it to be almost overrun with heartless. There was something in Merlin's eyes like nostalgia "so your his student, can you swear to me you mean my friends and this world no Ill will?" I nodded "my mission is to correct the error of my master and clear his name, up until the end he blamed himself for fostering the circumstances that allowed the seeker to come into being, and I swore to him when he went to destroy kingdom hearts that I would do whatever it took to make things right." He nodded "well I think I owe you a cup of tea, everyone please hear me now, this boy here is not our enemy, eh-hey-bum..z what was your name?" "Prosper." "Well prosper come on in and have some tea, I would like to hear more about you mission and I'm sure it would be best for you to explain it to my friends, they are good people and have been aiding the keyboard wielders on their journeys, you kairi actually was here studying under me for a period of time."

Inside Merlin's house most of us were seated at the table, cid was at the computer screen and yuffie was bouncing around on Merlin's bed. "If you would prosper." I nodded and took a long sip of tea. "I studied under ansem the wise, while he was exiled and under the name Diz, I wasn't directly involved with the key made war, but I've been part of it all along I guess, Riku was his assistant in orchestrating his plot against the organization, I was the assistant that managed the digital twilight town, and that picked out roxas' friends. I felt horrible knowing I was letting my master use sora and his nobody but it had to be done. Ansem taught me everything he knew, about science, magic, and especially, he taught me about the heartless, about the folly his other students had fallen to. When he set out to destroy kingdom hearts, he put me to sleep, when I woke and saw he had failed, I hit the drawing board, my understanding of the darkness that gives form to the heartless allowed me to develop this." I pulled the pendant off, and placed it on the table, "if hearts that return to darkness can be captured until a keyblade can return them to kingdom hearts, then we can actually stop heartless from forming, no heartless no nobodies." To everyone else it sounded like an amazing idea, but there was something more important to it than that, Merlin knew "I discussed this with master Yen Sid, we both shared the same fear, that should sora and the other succeed we might be facing an endless cycle, defeat the somebody, the heartless runs amok, defeat the heartless the nobody wreaks havoc, defeat the nobody the somebody is free again, endlessly." I nodded "like I said, I'm no keyblade wielder, but I'm the closest thing to ansem the worlds have right now."

I sat down exhausted, I couldn't take any more of this, I had been making my way into the castle, Merlin had given me his blessing, and the others had made me an honorary member of the restoration committee, but the sheer number of heartless inside the castle was almost too much, "okay need to rest up my mana, no magic no way to fight them off, I barricaded myself in his office and took the opportunity to look through the remnants of his work, most of it was old, I grabbed a few notes that I didn't recognize and made my way to the control room, "tron you still hanging in there buddy?" "Prosper!? Yes I'm quite alright, I'm the new mcp and doing my best to keep up the gardens defense programs," "congrats on the promotion... Who's been here, the heartless manufacturing room..." I ran in and saw what I was afraid of, a boy in a black cloak with a mess of silver hair on top of his head, he was standing over the door to the lower levels, a control panel in front of him, as I watched the cells bellow rose to the surface through the floor, "xehanort! Stop! Those heartless can't be released!" He turned back and smiled "and who are you? A fly? Not even one of those powerless keyblade bearers." "Who needs a key blade! Stopra!" The cells stopped emerging but he remained unaffected. "Great time travelers are immune to time magic, that's not annoying, not at all, I ran at him thundara!" But as soon as I launched the bolt f lightning he summoned his key and deflected it, "darkness." He plunged the key into the ground and pillars of dark magic surged up through the ground I dodged them but they chased me, I summoned shell but he teleported within range and was about to try to decapitate me, "I'm outclassed..." I used trance again, the activation threw him off, I used set up runic on myself and launched another ultimate level spell at him "meltdown!" A solid wall of fire and wind magic rose around me and coalesced into an orb, it connected, runic absorbed the damage it would have done to me and I watched at the orb bowled across the room, it didn't get far with young xehanort at it's center before the fire was reduced to nothing, he didn't look much worse for the wear though, which was bad news because meltdown was a very high level spell and If that didn't make a scratch I didn't stand much of a chance, while he straighter himself I reapplied my stopra to make sure the cells didn't go anywhere, "interesting, trance, a state entered by a massive explosion of emotion that brings out the absolutely primal abilities of the user and amplifies them, yet you seem so calm, driven but if don't detect anywhere near the amount of rage or sorrow that would normally activate the state," "your not the only one who knows how to manipulate the body and heart, I am the last disciple of ansem the wise and it is my duty to correct his mistakes, chief among them, you." I launched thundara's at him by the dozens, they circled him in a massive storm, he deflected some, attempted to reflect others, but was still hit by several of them, while he was distracted by the torrent of thunder magic I summoned up a stronger technique of mine, magic circles circled the air around me, their effect was invisible to him due to the thunder, when the last of my thunder passed he straightened panting slightly but mostly unaffected, but then he saw the beach ball orbs of water surrounding him "watera!" The orbs exploded, water was much stronger than other spells even in the same tier, the draw back being how slow it moved, the thunder was a great distraction, the crushing power of the water obviously damaged him as he stood the soaked and leaning on his key for support, "you are an exceptionally powerful Mage, despite not using a key-blade, or even a staff, but you know your outclassed no more stalling tactics, he surged at me just when he was approaching he disappeared though, he reappeared behind me and deliver a bone rushing key blade combo to my back, I got away as fast as I could and returned with a fira, but he was already gone, I used a cura and my trance ran out, "and it looks like your sole lifeline has just snapped, so how Long do you think you'll last?" This was bad very very bad, "reraise!" There was a bloom of light around me, he didn't seem to care because it wasn't an offensive spell and that meant I had no mana left, I gave him the most intimidating look I could offer before running away from him towards the control panel, I reached it had tried to command the cells to go back down to the dungeons but the next thing I know the panel is split in two and there's a really bad pain in my chest, I fall backwards and everything goes dark.

When I woke I was still staring up at the ceiling of the heartless manufacturing room, I sat up and saw the cells were gone, as well as xehanort, instead standing there and looking down at the dungeons was two guys, one taller with long silver hair one shorter with a tangle of brown, they turned back and looked at me. "Hey he's awake." That's when I saw the keyblade at his side, "ah great freaking key blade wielders. One tall and gloomy another short and annoyingly chipper, sora and Riku right?" The smaller one grinned and the larger one glared "and just who are you? We cake because tron sent out a message that xehanort had appeared but all we find is you." "Oh trust me I'm not xehanort, if you people are supposed to be the guardians of the worlds I don't know why you weren't here sooner, you guys just screw everything up." "Hey! Watch it!" "Whoa Riku chill out, what do you mean we screw everything up?" Sora asked, I laughed it was pretty typical they didn't even know what the had done. "Let's see it's been eleven years now hasn't it, the three disciples of eraqus set out, one becomes a test subject for xehanort, another becomes a host for him and the last one sacrifices herself for the second one, move on forward another five years, xehanort wakes up in the castle, creates some of the most powerful nobodies in history, splits himself into a nobody and the seeker of darkness. Seemed of darkness creates this room here, manufactures heartless for key blade wielders to go around killing and create kingdom hearts, which you do wonderfully, he also creates some super heartless which he just came back to release, so first you two stop the seeker, after a brief period of one of you working with him, then one of you helps my master along the path to his own destruction, and them once he's wasted his life you go in and take down the nobody, and bring back the genuine article, and now we're here." "How do you know all that?" Sora questioned but riku knew who I was now. "You him, the kid Diz took under his wing, while me and namine protected roxas and restored sora he told me he had been training a new student to take over his work." "Nice, you figured it out gold star, the name's prosper, and I'm here to clean up your mess." "Ya know what you better watch youself!" Sora grabbed riku's arm "calm down, he's right Riku." He sighed "so just how are you going to stop him?" "Easy, the biggest mistake that everyone involved in this for the last decade had made is that none of you can touch kingdom hearts, the seeker and the nobody both forgot too much about their true goal, the x-blade, they both went looking for kingdom hearts, one just found the door to darkness, and the other spent years building up kingdom hearts thinking that doing so would make him whole again, but it didn't do anything for him because he didn't have the key, so that's what xehanort's doing now. He's got his seekers of darkness and he'll either use the princesses or the key blade wielders to make the blade. Your right it's too late for me to stop that, I have to trust you seven to, but even if you do he'll just start over, he'll become the seeker and the nobody again and orchestrate this over and over until he wins, which is why I'll capture every single heart trapped in a heartless, kingdom hearts won't grow stronger, which should make it easier for you guys to take him down, and once he's down I'll take his heart too, and return it to kingdom won't be able to form more than one nobody kill that one and he'll be gone for good , he'll be nothing different from any other shred of darkness in kingdom hearts." "Sounds like you have everything figured out." "Ansem figured everything out, you people are the only variables, don't fight heartless until you've taken him down." "Then who keeps them in check?" "I do, I've captured about six thousand hearts already, I keep going. Part of the problem is that the young bastard just came here and released the lost numbers, heartless the seeker didn't even want released, I'll have to hunt them down first." I looked down at my shirt, it was split diagonally. "I might have to do some shopping first." Sora laughed and grinned "I'll tell The king and everybody to help you out if they can, good luck." Riku however glared more "you'll need it without a keyblade." I shot back my own glare "don't screw anything up." I summoned up my travel technique, the tessaract, it formed right in front of me a tesseract is like a cube is to a square, but to the cube instead, it looked like three cubes folded together at every edge, made of light, I touched it and teleported, I landed in Merlin's house in a flash. "Ah so you've learned how to wrinkle as well, what a marvelous student you must have been." "Flatterer, but there's trouble, the cells beneath the heartless manufacturing room in the castle contained mutated heartless that were too powerful or uncontrollable for even the seeker, xehanort reared his ugly silver head and released them." "That is quite a problem... Do you have any idea where these would be deployed?" "Probably to all the nearest worlds, heartless week hearts and the more they collect the more powerful kingdom hearts will be for xehanort, I'll have to just go where they appear, but he is a master of time and space magic, it's a real possibility they won't show up all at once." "Well i will alert some of the other mages, and have the restoration committee keep an eye out, in the mean time you could possibly procure a new shirt in the market square."

Merlin have me a scroll and a spell book, I went to the market and bought a plain cotton long sleeve, I looked at the full length mirror, at sixteen I stood at 5'9, I had a lithely muscled profile, on top of my head sat messy black hair and my eyes were big and green, my skin had a natural tan to it from my home world, now I was wearing the white cotton long sleeve, my pendant, and blue and teal plaid on white shorts, my feet and calves were bound in old style roman sandals. I opened the scroll Merlin had given me, it contained a spell to make my clothing have armor like defense, I activated it and a complicated magic circle drew itself across the side of the shirt from about the middle of my stomach around to almost my spine. I paid and wrinkled to the castles peak, "if I knew the exact nature of the lost numbers I could track them but of course ansem didn't even know." Instead I performed a spell to see which of the nearby worlds had the greatest population of heartless, the lost numbers would have greatly increased a worlds priority to the spell. The closest bordering worlds were the land of dragons, the dwarf woodlands, beast's castle and port royal, Disney town and castle was also nearby but the population was almost zero, scratch that whatever had gotten in was gone now, probably nothing stronger than a shadow. The winner was, land of dragons, the usual heartless population for a world Is roughly half of the somebody population, but the somebody was several times less the heartless populace there.

I wrinkled towards the greatest concentration of heartless, when I landed it was in what looked like an impossibly long palace courtyard, the lost number was only yards from me, a woman with a sword with a small dragon on her shoulder stood over a fallen soldier of some sort, the number had obviously come to the place where the original heartless it had been made from had originated, it appeared as a giant white lion, it had green oriental decorated armored plates, and In a collar around its neck seemed to be, erupting from it's main were neo-shadow like arms, six of them, it's face was similar to a hunter of the dark with a long looking green tongue falling out between jagged teeth, the tongue was covered in spikes, and the tail rattling behind it was a long razor sharp looking fan of black flees and blue green webbing, it was huge too, easily three times the size of a human "look out!" I summoned a shield around the woman when it lunged at her, she looked back at me. "Thank you!" "Hurry get him to safety I can handle this monster." She nodded and hefted the man onto her shoulder, she ran towards the palace and I confronted the number "your an ugly SOB aren't you?" If gave a roar as an answer, I quickly cast a libra at it, this was number twenty six, it had massive poison powers, and it's fan was on fact razor sharp. It was immune to sleep too, so even if I trances and tried to twilight it, it wouldn't work. "Well your problematic aren't you." It was weak to fire so I made sure to deliver, I rolled towards it barrier up and launched my attack "fira" the orbs of fire that circled me crashed right into its face, I backpedalled when it span around and tried to slice me with it's tail, "mushu!" "Im on it baby! Fire powaaa!" There was a fiery explosion that collided with the number, the woman with the dragon rushed up and brandished her sword, "we'll fight it together." "You can say that again girl!" "Your dragons talking..." "His names mushu, he does that a lot ." I shook it off and summoned a protect when the heartless tried to slash at us again "it mainly tries to attack with its tail, is that what got the guy?" "No it spat poison on him, it ate through his armor and knocked him out." I didn't waist any time casting a veil spell on both of us, I took it's front and blasted it with a barrage of fire spells keeping it busy and in pain, while she crept behind it, and with a flash she sliced it's tail off. The fan blade melted into darkness but the stump started to spray genomic thrashed and spa and drenched everything in it's corrosive venom, the spell I had cast protected is from most of it but she got nailed when it swung it's stump at her and swept her off her feet, it looked painful and at first she didn't get up "fall back I'll take it from here!" I sent a cura to her and thankfully she did as I asked. I was utterly exhausted, I had used more mana in the last two days than the last month, despite the amount of pain the number must have been feeling it was no where close to death, I activated my trance again, so many forced trances in a short interval meant that the duration would be shorter each time, meltdown was only an option in trance, because it's cost was 3/4 of the maximum time I could spend in the state and not mana, but I didn't know how much time I had left, I might break my trance and not have enough to complete the spell. My two ultimate class spells utterly useless against the number, I had to resort to the basics. "Fire!Fire!Fire!Fire!Fire!" The basic fire spell, it was less powerful than Fira's but I could launch many more fires than Fira's and still do decent damage, the benefit was many monsters have a breaking point, a point where too much damage is being suffered all at once and it dies, if I could utterly blast it to ashes I stood a chance, the orbs of fire bloomed to life around me and launched themselves at the number, I must have launched a hundred, the beast entire engulfed in flame and the ground around it charred before there was a shriek and a burst of green energy that the number was destroyed, the fire died down to barely licking flames along the pavement and the hearts that had constituted the number were released a huge number of them, if must have been dozens of heartless before it was modified, I collected the hearts and launched a cura at Mulan's friend before tesser-ing away. But when I did I passed out mid wrinkle.

I was too tired to lift my eyelids, too tired to do anything but sleep. But eventualy I had the strength to open my eyes, and when I did I saw I had been rescued from my own wrinkle, I sat up in an unfamiliar bed, blue everywhere, lots of old wood and blue. The small come shaped room was host too a wooden bed with blue sheets a pale blue ceiling and a deep cerulean deleted floor the lonesome door was also wood, I pulled myself from the warmth of the bed and looked for my shirt, nowhere to be seen, I opened the door and saw it lead down a spiral staircase, I followed it down and the door at the bottom far down opened into a study, it was surprisingly minimalistic, two shelves full of this and that, behind a desk in a high backed chair sat yet another old man in great blue robes with a two tones heard and a hat patterned with moons and stars, he looked up from a pile of pages"well if it isn't the traveller." "I... Um... Yen Sid?" He nodded "your master told you of me, yes?" "The stargazer yen Sid." "I have been reviewing your notes, forgive me for calling them here from your lab." I was slightly shocked, I had thought my lab was pretty well hidden, "your research is of utmost importance, we're lucky that not only do we have time for you to enact your plan, but also because xehanort cannot proceed further until certain requirements are met, constraints of his meddling in time no doubt." I nodded "but, it is also my duty as a sorcerer to recognize the wellspring of talent presented before me, ansem was many things but Magecraft was his hobby not his art, you can only cast up to tier two spells in all aspects of combat magic, one third tier in status magic, two in time, and healing, and only first level spells in supportive correct?" I nodded, scary he knows everything about me "you did however develop a method to enter the trance state under normal emotional conditions and under which have access to two ultimate class spells correct?" I nodded "mages are a dying breed, those who enjoy magics benefits rarely to on to study it's art form, I'll make a deal with you, a win win I believe, I will monitor the stars and alert you when one of these lost numbers appears, and in return, you will study the finer arts and become a sorcerer as well." I smiled I liked deals like this "done. Just one question." He nodded "yes?" "Where's my shirt?" He sighed "the three good fairies made off with it to study Merlin's spell work." I nodded "well... It's an offer I can't refuse, but I will have no dealings with keyblade masters, I will apprentice under you but I will not associate with them." "Do you truly harbor such animosity towards them? I was a master myself you know. You cannot forgive them for falling to xehanort's schemes? The monster has both the patience and the power to lay plans for decades into the future, he seems to have laid everything out so well that his contingency plans appear to have A greater chance of success than his original attempt." "I've understood the majority of his scheme since my master introduced me to it, if someone besides the two of us had been looking for the signs ansem would still be alive, and I wouldn't be left to clean up decades worth of mistakes. He only made a few small errors, firstly he trusted people, and secondly in his desperation to correct his first mistake he believed he could quantify kingdom hearts, the keyblade wielders on the other hand have done nothing but play into his hands." I let out a huff be he studied me carefully for a moment "whether or not you are justified, hate, and piety, and the inability to trust others, will only attract the darkness to you." I gave the cockiest smirk I could "I'm a big boy I'm not afraid of the dark, and I certainly won't fall under it's sway." He nodded and a handful of tomes drifted through the air towards me, I used the shrink spell and pocketed them "start with those and the spell book Merlin gave you, I will keep you updated on the heartless." I nodded and claimed my shirt from the fairies before wrinkling away.

I munched my dango thoughtfully, I didn't know where I had landed, all I did know was I was hungry, it hadn't taken long to wander through the town which apparently was celebrating sending off their soldiers, I had found a sweet shop and bought enough dango and sweets to last a regular person a month, for me it would be a lot less. I had an actual scientific reason behind it though. Mana recovery is sped up by digestion and processing of saccharides, so as long as I kept using magic I could eat all the sweets I wanted. Now I was sitting on the rooftop of one of the tallest buildings, I was reviewing the spell books given to me by the stargazer and pendragon, most of the spells were above my level, i worked through the practicing charms though,Basically diluted versions of the spells until I was more confident in the mechanics of the full spell, as for actual combat magic, it was trickier, it was only through experience and repetition that a Mage gained access to the higher tier of a spell, that or an emotional experience which had something to do with that particular kind of magic. I was reviewing the notes I had picked up in ansem's study, there was one bit I was focusing on, sadly it revolved around sora, mainly how he had kept his emotions as a heartless, his theory was that since the body was either lost or missing as either a nobody or a part of kingdom hearts, the darkness that embodied the heartless however could possibly be restored to sentience. He had a handful of uncompleted formulas that suggested how it could be done, I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing them, when I had the best one solved I tried it, I summoned up the purest heart I had collected so far. And that was how I made my first friend besides my master.

"What's your name?" "mason." "How old are you mason?" "I was eighteen." "I hope I can help you to be eighteen again." "And I hope I can help you, I know I'm not very powerful like this, but I want to help." I smiled at the small shadow heartless, he looked like any other shadow, but he was smaller than most, he stood straighter and his antennae were less curled, and unlike other pure blood heartless he had a heartless symbol on his chest, the red lines replaced instead by green, the color of mana. I spent the entire night only talking with mason, he was nice for company, and he was cuddly and pet sized!

Mason while an incredibly low ranking heartless still has all the standard powers and more. He could detect his own kind which would undoubtably come in handy hunting down the lost numbers, and as with all hearts I was able to store all of my spells and formulas in him, and then we discovered the dark archive, apparently the seeker had stored most of his scientific and alchemical knowledge in the heartless as well.

The next morning I was strolling around the town with mason at my side when he suddenly stopped and grabbed at my shorts leg "what's up mace?" He pointed towards the shop we had just past "there was a lot of magic spent right there, is seemed like the darker stuff." I picked him up in my arms and walked into the hat shop, "hello?" What I found was a blond woman and her basically identical daughter sobbing "she's gone! Sophie!"

Me and mason tried to console the women, but the only thing they could tell us about where they thought she might be was that a demon wizard was traveling nearby with a reputation for eating the hearts of young girls, at that there was no possible way for me to ignore it. After traveling a few days out into the waists and collecting the hearts of every heartless we came across, we still hadn't found this mysterious moving castle, until we reached star lake, the lake was beautiful, and sitting out by it was an old woman "hello?" She turned to me a sleepy smile on her face "why hello there." "Excuse me ma'am , I'm looking for a wizard, or if you haven't seen him perhaps a girl named-" "Sophie! Come on you can't sit out there forever!" "Coming markl, that boy, can I invite you in? I think I know just the wizard your looking for." She gave a knowing smirk "ooh it's getting blustery, let's get inside, I'm sure there will be room for you somewhere, you seem kind." She gave me a wink and I followed her inside the metal monstrosity of a castle.

Inside was pristine and obviously home to a wizard, a stone hearth with a warm fire burned away "calcifer we have a guest, where's howl?" The fire spouted eyes and a mouth "he's out Sophie, doing god knows what-whoa whoa whoa! Whaddaya think your doing bringing another wizard in here! He has a familiar too for god sakes!" "Oh another wizard? Well what do you want to see howl about?" I shrugged "I study peoples hearts, and I heard that there was a wizard going around eating out pretty girl's, if he was I would have taken him down but I doubt that's the truth." Sophie have me a knowing look, "I believe your right, I've been working here for a while now and have her to see that vainglorious oaf eat a heart, let alone his vegetables." I laughed and helped up mason who was trying to get onto the hearth with calcifer." Mason inspected the fire demon curiously "hey watch it I'll burn ya to a crisp!" Mason chuckled "then why haven't you? I bet your a big softy I can see how big a heart you have too." "Well it is getting late would you two like to stay the night? With the hours that dumb wizard keeps it would he horrible to send you all the way to the nearest town and not be able to see him till you made it all the way back and he dragged himself out of bed."

She made up a futon for me, I stayed up a while and studied my texts a little more, before scooping up mason and curling up with him pressed into my chest. "I don't care if your older than me, you still make the best snuggle buddy ever." Mason bummed contently, his little arms gripping my shirt. I fell asleep in complete bliss, when i opened my eyes Sophie greeted me with a plate of bacon and eggs, "thanks you very much Sophie, I feel I owe some favors, calcifer I noticed your outside could use a spit shine, why don't you lend me some cleaning tools and I'll help out Sophie. After breakfast I hung out from the balconies and scrubbed the castle clean, I came inside and was greeted by mason wrapping himself around my left leg and Sophie greeting me, "we were at the market while you were working, that witch showed up, and the warships were absolutely destroyed when they came in to port, this war is terrible." Suddenly there was an unearthly cry from upstairs "Sophie! Look what you've done! My potions! My beautiful hair!"

A slime ball later and I was still no closer to actualy meeting howl, when he wasn't bemoaning his hair color. Sophie came down with grave news. She would be traveling to appear before the king In howls place.

Mason and I laid in wait in Sophie's shadow, I hopes this meeting with the king would go well but had no proof, I wanted to at least serve as back up. It was enjoyable to watch the witch melt as she mounted the stairs, but inside when we were confronted by Sulliman I got scared, this wasn't going well, something was off... When the king came in I relaxed, the high sorceress hadn't noticed me, and- howl was the king- things moved fast, I leapt from the shadow when Sulliman tried to attack and pinned Sophie's hat with her staff, "howl! Sophie! Go! I'll buy you time!" The two fled through the glass roof and Sulliman shot me an appraising look "ah, another meddler, well since I can't have howl I might have to settle for you." She raised her staff once it had reappeared in hand and like a damn breaking forth a swell of darkness errupted, an orb of solid shadow appeared and the beast that arose from it was no doubt a lost number, like any other powerful heartless a number was easily controlled by those whose madness and darkness was almost overrunning their heart, obviously it wasn't Sullivan's heart that was so polluted. I expected it had been the witches until her powers had been claimed. "Beast called forth by my pupils black heart, defeat the Mage before me and convert him into a tool of this war." With that she disappeared and eyed the number. The body was reminiscent of an invisible, but in the normal heart shaped void was replaced by the heartless symbol, it had six arms, all black as midnight, small wings erupting from it's wrists, on either side of its powerful chest folded up before the arms were angel like wings, it's head was a black orb with a white masquerade mask on it, behind it several black raven wings flapped restlessly, I fast cast a libra, this was number eleven, it was immune to everything but poison, and it's elemental weakness was ice and lightning. It sized me up pacing slowly around me in a circle, I didn't waist any time in barraging it with poison spells, most fell harmlessly off it but finally one stuck and began to slowly damage the heartless, now it gave a squab in rage and flared it's wings, a florist of pitch black feathers flew at me, I felt them tear into my skin where the connected. The feathers razor sharp, I summoned a protect to prevent any worse damage but as soon as I deactivated it, a trio of fists came flowing into me, I was thrown back and crashed to the tiled floor with a loud shatter from every tile I had touched, my back exploded in agony, I managed to roll out from it's next attack in time to save my own life, I cast a quick cure spell and the moved as far out of range as possible. I activated my trance form and rained down thundara's until the number was so charged with electricity my bolts were deflected away from it. My blizzara spells blasted holes into the heartless but it's inky black blood just coagulated back into the shadow it came from, getting nowhere fast I used a spell that was surprisingly low class but incredibly powerful if done right "saber!" My mana erupted around me, green blue energy coalescing into a glassy material in my hands, I had a firm grip on the seven foot long pole of a giant crystal axe, I didn't have much experience with weaponry, but I had more than enough to begin surging across the floor and hacking at it, I had lopped of a couple of it's arms and could tell i was wearing it down, I swung downward at it and suddenly a pillar of flesh shot out from its gut and speared me in the side, my concentration broke and my weapon shattered, crystalline bits of mana cascading from my hands and sublimating back into wispy bits of magic, my hands closed around the 'spear' I had been impaled with, formulas appeared in the air around me as I checked my own vitals, I hadn't been damaged anywhere lethal, the worst damage was of course to my dermis and a small cut along my G-I tract, the bleeding however could be problematic, it was probably more damage than a cura could handle all at once, the best course of action was probably to use a cura and then cauterize what was still bleeding with fire, first thing was first, I rose my hand and charged it with a thundara and karate chopped through the spear, It backpedalled and roared in pain, meanwhile I hit my lip to keep from doing the same as I extracted the spear healed myself and then burned what I didn't have time to heal, the damage was minor enough I should be able to heal myself completely and not even leave a scar from the burns, but the first thing was to kill this heartless, i needed to be more careful, I didn't have any support besides mason and if I was dead I wouldn't have magic to keep him 'human' I laid down a wall of mines and retreated a safe distance behind it, I dodged and launched blizzard spells and replaced my mines whenever it had stumbled across them, I was wearing it down slowly, but my trance was already come and gone and my mana was nowhere near infinite, a shatter came down from above and starbursts of red energy exploded along the monster, howl descended from the air next to me hair as I blasted the heartless with the last of my ice finally the hearts were freed and then collected, mason rose from the shadows around me and count to me, he wasn't capable of much but I felt better just at his touch, howl scooped me up and took off into the air and I blacked out.

I didn't come to for a couple days, by then the castle had been expanded, when I woke up I was laying behind the hearth, I was treated by cal's voice "good mooring sleeping beauty, howl out you there three whole days ago since your mana was so low, some kind of poison rubbed of from that sorceress no doubt." "Where's mason?" "How put him in charge of me and markl when Sophie was at her shop and he was 'out' the nerve, but he is pretty polite." I smiled "thanks for helping me heal cal."

When the bombs started dropping and the monsters appeared in the courtyard was when things got bad, I pushed howl and Sophie inside and fought off the transformed wizards, for the second time I entirely exhausted my mana, despite winning it still mean all I could so was flee with Sophie and the castle, I tried to stop Sophie from moving cal but she did, when she returned with howl long after I had lectured the witch for hours about how she had succumbed to her darkness her again, Sophie took cal I watched sitting with mason in my lap, he clung to me "I promise mace, one day that'll be your body and I'll be putting you right back where you belong." Things took yet another turn for the worse yet again when cal free from howls heart flew off, turnip head saved the day and I watched the lecherous witch prey on the prince he transformed into. There was a joyous cry as call returned to be caught by Sophie. I watched the reunion and I cried, why was I being so ridiculous! I'm not a baby! I'm a mage! I know the inner workings of the universe and... I'm bawling like a baby, I felt a fire bloom in my chest and knew that I had just created an emotional bond that forced my magic to evolve, firaga, when I told them I couldn't stay and be a part of their family I did however have to tell them that a little bit of calcifer would always be with me, a little sting of fire that would always tie me to them.

"Prosper?" "Yeah mace." "Why do you have such a hard time admitting you have feelings? I'm a heartless and apparently I'm better at it." I blushed and looked away as we exploded the forest yen sid had directed us to "I have feelings! I know that! It's just I don't have any use for most of them, a good scientist never let's his emotions pollute his research, he will never get perfect results." "But aren't you also a Mage? Isn't the working method of magic wanting something enough that you use your mana to let yourself have it?" I let out a little bit of a growl "I don't have any problems with my emotions! Stop teasing me mason!" He laughed, and clung to my leg. "You obviously never have a problem expressing anger." "I swear, I won't beat you up while your a heartless but as soon as you get your body back I'll be sure to break your nose." "Whatever you say shorty." "What's that supposed to mean!?" "Nothing, shouldn't you eat something besides dango?" "Your my assistant not my jiminy cricket." "Can I get a lab coat?" "No but you can get a hole in your head if you want." "I'll let you cool down before I continue teasing." "Thank you, and your only a foot tall so that ego of yours may need some checking." "Whatever you say vainglorious."

"Heartless about a kilometer ahead, they aren't numbers but there are two some bodies." We dashed towards them and found a girl trying to protect a wounded man, she was wielding a frying pan and a whip of... Her own hair, wow, first a magic fireball eats hair to grow stronger, now a girl is using it for combat." The heartless were all mid level, a dozen sniper and bouncy wilds, and a handful of heartless exclusive to this world, they looked like taller and feminine neo shadows. But instead of antennae they too wielded a sharp pony tail of blond hair, their bodies clothed in flowers and pieces of armor. "Magnera!" I called all the heartless' fire away from the two and was strong enough to catch a hold of all the heartless and throw them into the air together, I stomped my foot "fire!" A spark ignited under my foot and surged at the floating ball of heartless, it collided and sent up a small plume of fire, "fira!" A two globes of fire tore through the crowd and finally "firaga!" A star appeared at the center of the crowd before suddenly exploding outward in a perfect sphere of fire, I captured the hearts, I looked at the duo "sorry folks everyone alright?" The blonde girl shook her head "thank you for saving us!" I watched curious as she tied her hair around the mans numerous wounds "hold on Flynn I'll help you. Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine, save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine, what once was mine." Her hair literally shimmered with liquid golden light and the mans pained expression visibly relaxed "how did that just happen!" "My hair has healing powers-" suddenly she looked at me "don't get any funny ideas!" "Don't worry I have healing magic of my own, I wouldn't take yours, especially because I have a horrible singing voice." At that mason perked up "he's not lying, don't get me wrong he's very capable of deceit, but his singing voice can break glass." I blushed and got angry it's one thing for me to acknowledge it but a completely different one when someone else does! I grabbed him by the antennas and offered him to the girl "here I'll trade him for your chameleon!" She giggled "thank you for saving us, I've never seen monsters before, and Flynn here wasn't much help, even against

the bandits." "Hey we can't all have a frying pan."

I escorted rapunzel and Flynn back to castle town, we spent the night in the forest and something strange happened with blondie but we don't know what, when we got there though she was back to normal, she was so excited running around screaming, she made friends with everyone, tried every sweet imaginable (I may or may not have been right there besides her) I was stumped, I couldn't find the source of the darkness master yen sid had detected, it either had fled or was well veiled, I suspected the second one because I doubted he wouldn't tell me if the number had moved. "You haven't sensed any darkness lately have you mason?" He shook his head, careful not to knock over the circlet of flowers on his head, "hardly even regular heartless levels, you know you should let them do your hair too, it's almost long enough for them to probably braid flowers into it." I shook my head furiously, "your always bullying me, I wish you couldn't speak." I stuck my tongue out at him and the girls giggled as I sat down in front of the fountain and let myself he beautified.

Flynn and rapunzel were about to take a gondola, mason stepped on but I quickly grabbed him "prosper... Aren't you coming with us?" "Oh no, sorry but I can't handle boats. Me and mason will get a view from the rooftops don't worry. After trying to convince me a pushed them out and finally answered masons questions "why not join them? I know you happen to like water." "Because dum-dum, their like two seconds from falling for each other, as much as we've gotten involved we're still only bystanders to this world." He nodded "I can't wait for this war to be over, I hate watching you forcing a mask of apathy and pretending you don't have any right to life. living only by your goal. I want the world you help create to be a place where you can spend a lazy afternoon eating dango and taking a nap, that'd make me happier than all the fighting." I squeezed his small clawed hand reassuringly, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to come off like the only reason in here is to do my job, it's just that, If I don't, then it's like my master got taken from me for nothing, and the world should work by equivalence, he gave his life and got nothing, so since I lost my master I should at least be able to end the war." "It's always easier to speak about what's hurting when the wound is still open, I'm sad that you have been so damaged by this war." I patted his head "your really eloquent for such a tiny heartless." I looked around us. We were surrounded by the cloud of flying lanterns "how about as long as you stay with me I'll try to live like a somebody instead of a Mage every once in a while." I felt this weightless feeling in my chest and knew the spell, He nodded and i raised my hand "zero graviga." A pulse of darkness beneath us severed our bond with gravity as we drifted higher upwards floating through the waves of shining lanterns, higher and higher, I smiled at mason and pulled of some zero g acrobatic moves that made him laugh, "come on, let's to see what the love birds are up to, I guarantee you they'll kiss." Mason just flew towards me and settled with wrapping his arms around my neck from behind and holding on like that, peering over my shoulder, we drifted close to their gondola "isn't it nice, their singing to each other, love blooms in the middle of a war." I nodded,"come on, if we watch any longer we're voyeurs, let's go get ice cream." We made out way back to land hopping from lantern to lantern weightlessly.

We had all agreed to meet back in the square but me and mason sat alone waiting for entire night and half of the next day "let's go mace, I shouldn't have gotten distracted like this, that darkness is still here somewhere, and taking all of this time screwing around was wrong." "But what about our friends?" I made my way across the bridge practically stomping "those don't exist!" "Your so sad." He grabbed my hand and walked alongside me "even if you can't trust other people yet, let me stay by you, I'll be your shadow, and you can depend on me If your ever ready to I'll always be here." We walked for only a half an hour when suddenly thunderous hoof falls of a horse could be heard "prosper! Rapunzel's in trouble!" I wanted to be angry, but honestly I was relieved to see Maximus and Flynn, I zero graviga' myself and leapt alongside the hounding duo.

At the tower storm clouds were brewing overhead, a woman with tangled black hair and a wild expression in her face was visible through the window, "no! You will not take my flower!" The darkness of the number suddenly appeared, a column of black thunder roared down from the sky, obviously the number had bonded to Rapunzel's captor's darkness, "Flynn I'll handle the monster, you get rapunzel out of there." He practically ran up the wall of the tower, the number that formed was giant, her top half was almost a woman, pure black skin and a feminine figure, her eyes a beefy yellow dots, her maw was jagged back fangs with a long gold tongue inside, her hair was made of long golden blade like whips, her arms were wrapped around her waist almost like a straight jacket, from the waist down her 'dress' exploded out in a wide cone, the cone made of light purple armor, but from under the dress was a giant sun like orb the sharp days of the sun more whip like blades of gold, libra told me that this was number eighteen, 'she' used magic attacks and by some miracle had no status immunities besides to sleep, but her health was incredibly high, "no more! No more numbers no more people lying to me, and no more people using the darkness to hurt my friends! Stopra!" I froze the beast in place and tranced "poison!" Orbs of toxic green matter swirled around her before exploding, "daze!" I stunned her with a swirl of red and black lightning "fog! A burst of gray and yellow locked it's magic, "slow!" "De protect!" "De shell!" "Curse!" I cast and recast Each spell multiple times Until I had exhausted my debuffing move pool I released it from stop, the damage from all the spells suddenly came to it from all the spells it was loosing a massive amount of health per second and I used all of my trance left at once to cast my strongest saboteur spell "bane!" It was only a rank 2 spell, but it did more damage the more spells were on the opponent, a giant black orb of magic exploded from the beast, a starburst of blue flares erupting across it, so much damage all at once resulted in an instant kill, I collected the hundreds of hearts that had constituted number 18, "remind me not to get you angry prosper." I smiled and sat back on my haunches "I shouldn't have fought so violently, I used a lot more mana than I should have had to." I looked up at the tower and saw a bloom of vine like gold light "I hope their okay."

"So looks like I'm owed a favor or two from a princess." Rapunzel rolled her eyes "thank you for helping to rescue me, again. What would you like as a favor?" "Hmm let's see I think I'll use my first free bee on the royal treasury taking on my dango expenses?" "Your going to bankrupt the kingdom." "Am not! Don't be ridiculous! How about you just save me a seat at the wedding?" She nodded excitedly and kissed me on the cheek. I went stiff as a board as she started talking excitedly to Flynn... I stiffly waved as walked away, compel rely ignoring the curaga spell I had just learned "your blushing." "am not." "You look like a lobster." "I got sunburnt!" "Was that your first kiss? Even on the cheek?" "No! I've kissed lots of girls!" "Liar liar~" "well! What am I supposed to say I come from a world with a population under a hundred!" "Maybe we should find you a girlfriend, trust me I come from a really big world, girls would love you- oh look at that your spontaneously combusting."

Two worlds later-

Deep jungle-

Olympus colosseum

"Why did you insist on navigating the words only at night?" "Because, although heartless are slightly less active at night I don't wanna get caught up in the worlds affairs anymore, it's detracting from my work." I pushed mason off me and laced up my snow boots, "how many hearts have you collected?" "Nineteen thousand four hundred and three. Not counting you." "That's an incredible amount you know! Your still struggling with getting involved with people aren't you." "I have no right to get involved." "That's it I'm labeling it fun time again your getting all scientist and. I have a duty again! We're gonna go and have a good time and do our job okay?" I sighed " I hate you so much." "Why?" "Because you make me make bad decisions!" I looked at my reflection, yen sid had warned me where the next number had appeared, I looked at myself in the mirror, I was now sporting dark jeans with deep blue boots, and a high collared black jacket that was lined with fur, I looked at myself sideways "You look very handsome in it, it's strange seeing you in such heavy clothes." "I look like a Mage, scrawny, and don't say weird stuff." "What you look very handsome, and you aren't scrawny, I her you could take me in an arm wrestle." "See saying that doesn't mean anything, I don't know what you look like, you could be six hundred pounds for all I know. Or maybe you weigh seventy five." "I won't tell you, I want it to be a surprise when you get to see me." I scooped him up and hugged him to my chest, "thank you, thank you for believing I'll fix things, and for being willing to put up with me, I know I'm horrible, I can't trust people, and now I'm getting mushy, come on, let's go and kick some frosty heartless ass."

"I'm cold..." I lifted mason and unzipped my jacket, I set him in and wrapped an arm around my chest so he wouldn't drop "thank you." "You're welcome, magnera, firaga!" "Your being pretty harsh, not even pretending these heartless are a threat." "I'm getting stronger, and I'm not going to leave arendelle until I've made heartless extinct in it." "What about me." "Your not a heartless, you just don't have a body." I stopped dead in my tracks when a stout little snow man walked past "mason..." "I see it too..." "Hi! I'm Olaf and I like hugs!" "He has a heart, his body isn't alive though... How do you do that?" "Do what?" "Talk and walk and not die despite the fact you just walked into an icicle?" "Oh that, dunno. Hey guys! I've been impaled!" I followed his gaze and a little ways down the frozen wonderland was a woman with a tall blond man and a giant reindeer, "do you all, um know how he's... Ya know." The girl sighed and blue her bangs out of her eyes "it's a lot story, my sister is kinda all magic-y and froze the summer and apparently created Olaf." "Can you take me to her?" She eyed me dubiously "I'm not looking to do anything funny, it's just, my friend here lost his body, And your sister somehow made Olaf." She nodded "well I'm sure it can't hurt, I'm Anna you already met Olaf, this is Kristoff and sven." I waved in greetings "look there are heartless all over this land, probably called out by this winter, i won't be dead weight, I'm a Mage and can fight them off and protect you." "He's really strong too, though he gets lazy if he doesn't have sugar every ten minutes." I flicked mason disapprovingly and followed the unusual quartet "is it just me or every time we get caught up in a world there's a couple, some kind of equine and some small loud creature?"

The frozen castle was a marvel, I Obeyed Anna's wishes and waited outside, but Kristoff didn't and ran in not long after, only for the two to be carried out by a giant ice and snow monster, a second one right behind it, long story short my new friends ended up pissing off the first one and I was left standing alone with the second, I lifted my hand and a globe of fire appeared above it, "are you going to let me in or am I going to have to blow you to snowflakes?" It looked cautiously at me then at the fire before stepping aside, I nodded in thanks and mounted the ice stairs to the castle, I let myself in I mounted them and found myself in the tower like ballroom, a woman sat huddled up in the center, here half braided white hair whirling in the somehow present wind "are you Elsa?" She lifted her head from her hands "w-who are you? How did you get in here?" "I just threatened to melt your body guard out there, but lost to me please, I mean you no Ill will, I'm aage working to exterminate this world of heartless, monsters like my friend here, I lifted mason out of my coat and he waved. "You have the power to create sentient beings, body's and hearts, I need to know how you do it." "You want to help your friend?" "Yes, and if it's possible to restore him it could be possible to restore others." She shook her head "I'm sorry but I don't know how I did it, I don't even know how to keep myself from hurting people, I've caused this winter and I can't even stop it, I sensed her despair growing and with it darkness "Elsa you have to stop right now. This despair your falling into is calling The darkness to you!" It was too late, she blacked out as her despair solidified and was bonded with the number that he come to this world, a spear of ice shot out of the ground around her, encasing her completely, it stuck out of the ground about fifteen feet into the air at an eighty five degree angle, the darkness wrapped around the column and took shape, a heartless with a vaguely feminine body was chained to the icy pillar, it's head was a bizarre armored like figure, like the head of a suit of armor, darkness seeped out from the visor, curling feminine curls of hair wrapped back around the pillar transforming part way into ice, down it's long neck it was attached to a female body, where the breast should be were crystals of ice which expanded up its shoulders and exploded out in delicate silver wings it's lower half covered by a fabric looking sheet of ice, all in all it resembled the masthead of a ship, I'm sure some kind of sad memory from Elsa's life had inspired the number to take this form. "Elsa!" She curled in on herself, "no choice then... Libra!" # fourteen all resistances weak against fire magic, but somehow was also healing itself from Elsa's magic, I would have to bombard the thing to oblivion quickly or it would just regenerate "firaga!" The small spark of fire that leapt from me and became the giant globe of an inferno did a massive amount of damage to it but not enough fast enough, it summoned icicles from the ceiling to try and spear me and clipped me numerous times, in trance I was able to multicast firaga's the miniature stars of fire erupting on the numbers surface, I was careful not to attack near Elsa, then out of nowhere two men in uniforms rushed in, shot arrows at the monster but were quickly disabled, one pinned to the wall by icicles through his clothes, another nearly squished against the window. I continued to fight the heartless a red hair man and a troop of soldier looking fellows suddenly appeared at the door the heartless was so distracted it obviously forgot to siphon of Elsa because my next attack destroyed the entire top half of its body, the darkness faded and I collected the hearts, "Elsa are you okay?" I walked towards her slowly, my trance was long gone and my mana was really low, but before I could reach her I felt a sharp pain at the base of my skull and blacked out.

When I came to I was in a jail cell, "great, who the hell thought that I was a criminal?" I wrinkled out of the cell, mason popping out of my coat "you okay?" "Yeah, my head hurts, what happened." "The red haired man hit you on the head, I clawed at him but he had a sword, I'm sorry I'm so weak." "No I wouldn't have wanted you to fight him off, if you'd fought while I was unconscious and lost I wouldn't have been able to save your heart." I made my way up our of the dungeon and to the middle of the castle, I was looking for someone to tell me where I was, when I heard humming and nearly missed the snow man that walked right between my legs "Olaf?" "Oh hey again, I've gotta find Anna you wanna help? She got hit with Elsa's magic in the heart." "Is she okay?"

Okay the plan is get Anna to krystoff and get them to kiss, i helped her down the hallway but ice appeared and blocked our path, I launched a firaga at it but it didn't so much as melt a drop "well I guess the only option left is the window, I opened it and the three of us slid down, we made out way across the icy frozen bay, but mason pulled on my collar from his place inside my coat "there are about fifty heartless to the left, about two hundred meters." "Olaf get her to kristoff!" I ran towards the mass of heartless, they resembled dark balls but crystalline shards of ice erupted randomly from their form, their coloring blue fading to yellow at the antennas before meeting with the wavy black of the body, "looks like I really will get to extinct heartless from this world, magnera!" The swirling orbs of red and blue magic pulled in most of the crowd, "aerora!" Tendrils of wispy grey magic formed into a ball before me, I shot my hand out pushing it at breakneck spears at the trapped heartless, the explosion of near gale force spiraling winds that appeared at the center of the crowd ripped into them trying to throw or slice them away from the magnets pull the conflicting forces of my magic shredding most of them to pieces, the remaining ones were greeted by dozens of thindara's, "shit... I'm using wait to much mana all at once, great, I seriously need a vacation..." I collected every heart rapidly chanting the formulas and incantations that drew them into my pendant. I didn't want to risk using any more mana so I cast saber and summoned my axe, I rushed at the few remaining heartless and felled them out of breath and panting, I dispelled my weapon. The raging blizzard suddenly dropped all together and across the ice I saw an a frozen solid Anna defending erza from the red head from before, Kristoff, sven and Olaf standing nearby mouths agape in shock, I ran towards them, Elsa threw herself at her younger sister crying, and just we I was reaching them, casting a quick and incredibly weak binding spell around the red head, there was a glow, before our very eyes Anna came back to life and Elsa ended the winter. And I learned blizzaga.

I stayed around for a couple days, trying to study Elsa's magic and her ability to create sentient beings, but in the end I couldn't figure anything out. I wasn't ready to go back to my lab or even my home world yet, I had promised myself I wouldn't until I had fixed everything, instead I headed to hollow bastion, I had cleared the castle and reinforced trons defense systems, not only could heartless not enter the castle, the defense mechanism was operating at 300% in the town, I visited the restoration committee twice. Merlin reported my progress to master yen sid, I spent most of the two days I had been in the castle manually operating the defense system, I had set from to run the program similar to mine that would store the hearts in the heartless manufacturing tubes until I collected them, but then I started feeling horrible, my body felt like it was on fire, I was constantly sweating, parched, and everything seemed to be moving, completely dizzying and then I collapsed on the floor, I was so tired and dizzy I couldn't move a finger, I couldn't even call out for mason. I laid there on the hard glass floor desperately hoping for the spinning to stop or to pass out, I finally did and when I woke I was in the bed I had set up in the library, a cold wet hand towel was sitting on my forehead and I was tucked in snugly." I struggled to sit up, the world had stopped spinning but I was ice cold and burning up at the vary same time, I saw mason strolling into the room, a bowl and spoon in his small clawed hands, "are you feeling any better?" I shook my head "I don't know I just feel terrible..." "Aerith is here, she helped me make this soup, she said you had come down with a cold, probably nothing severe but the amount of stress you put your body under probably only made it worse." He handed me the bowl of soup, despite my stomach feeling like an acid pit. "Try to put some of it down, I know it's hard, but it'll get better, 'Kay?" I looked up at the beautiful green eyed woman, she was wearing a floral yellow sundress her hair tied back in her almost iconic ribbon, "aerith, how did you get here?" "Mason came and got me, he said you had collapsed, I could've guessed you exhausted yourself working." "What's that supposed to mean?" "Your a workaholic silly, just because your trying to save the worlds doesn't mean your not human, you can get sick just like everyone else, you lucky to have a partner like mason to care so much about you, you don't really let people in you know." I sighed and set down the bowl. I had only managed to choke down two mouthfuls of the delicious broth before bile was rising in my throat. "I don't mean to... I mean I do... Don't trust a word I say this is probably the fever talking... I just... I can't let people in, I have to be an objective party, I have to avenge my master, he's the only person I've ever trusted, besides mason, and people who run around screaming they're doing it for the greater good took him away from me." She gave me a sad compassionate smile, "well, you don't have to trust us just yet, but I want you to know that I'm your friend. And even if you aren't ready yet, I swear I'll do my best to help you." I smiled at her. "See I'm a sorry for people like you and mason, it's just gotta be the smiles you two always give." I laid down and pulled my shadow into my chest, "would you like me to read to you? Or do you think you can sleep maybe?" I gave a weak smile, if you read to me I'm sure I will get better."

The next two days of my recovery were filled with nothing but puking and various members of the restoration committee stoping by to check up on me and try to make me feel better, Tifa liked to have thumb wars since I wasn't strong enough yet to arm wrestle her (and I enjoyed my arm unbroken) played video games with cid, poker with yuffie, had staring contests with Leon, and listened to Rinoa gossip about Leon and the rest of the committee. Finally I was feeling well enough to get on my feet, my whole body still felt weak, I collected the hearts from had harvested. The next day i felt completely better, I even made my way into town and got some sweets, mason tagging along right at my heels, but then mid way walking back towards Merlin's house when mason grabbed my leg, he didn't even need to I sense the sudden burst of darkness from miles away, I wasn't strong enough to tesser so all I could do was run, flying with graviga was too dangerous since I didn't know what kind of power I would be facing, but it was immense, I made my way through the winding ravines and valleys, jagged stone still tainted black and blue by the darkness that had been unleashed here. After losing my way a half a dozen times by running into dead ends I finally made it to the dark depths, I saw over the four edge, had bellow in the chasm was the villains vale, I leapt over the edge and just before I squashed against the ground cast float, crashing though the crest and landing softly on the ground, the sight in front of me was terrifying, I recognized the number, it was the only one master had ever studied in trying to find out their nature, number four, major numerous. The restoration committee was already here and attacking it, more like being pulverized by it. The giant squarish serpentine body with four massive heads, it was almost sixty feet high, curling patters running along it's body, I already knew how it worked, the first head used white magic to heal the rest and buff them, the second head had powerful status magic and a handful of ultimate class spells, the third had elemental spells and the fourth was chalked full of ultimate class magic. Yuffie was leaping from head to head using every bit of power she had to stay ahead of its attacks Leon was hacking and slashing but quickly running out of steam, Sid was diving down from the sky but I saw he was wounded, Rinoa was bombarding the number with spells, aerith was running around frantically trying to heal everyone, "stopra!" I only gave me about twenty seconds reprieve from the monster, I spent it healing everyone, and the telling Rinoa to get back up, time unfroze, everyone's injuries suddenly healing, Rinoa running back to call for more help, and three diminutive fairy like girls swirling around me "great you threw are the ones who released this thing aren't you!" "Ummm." "Were sorry" "whatever" were their respective answers " I tranced and began blasting it with blizzaga and firaga's. I saw it about to happen, all four heads zooming out jaws gaping at the very same time cids downward dive was going to send him right down one heads gullet, one was coming at yuffie from behind, a third was wrapping itself around Leon and he forth was rapidly shooing towards aerith, "no! I won't let this happen! Phantom!" All four of them were cloaked in dull gray misty magic, instead of being swallowed up by the beast the passed through the number as if they didn't exist. I dropped the spell once they were all safe, but the attacks seemed endless, I couldn't even keep attacking because I needed to heal them, and then it happened, Leon got caught between three heads all at once, he was blasted with an ultima a dark sky and an absorb all at once, I cast a reraise on him as the attacks hit he was revived by my spell before his heart head a chance to leave his body, but now it had no mana, all I could do was desperately try to recharge it from the air, I watched as the restoration committee struggled with the number, but it seemed we were hardly making a dent, the biggest problem was it's magic, if had permanent spell spring, which meant unlike me it had an unlimited amount of mana, and then the fourth head leapt out at aerith, it was primed to bite her in half, I panicked it was like a near death experience, like my life was flashing before my eyes despite the fact it wasn't my life that might be about to end, I thought I heard an audible shatter, I entered a true trance, it was hundreds of times more powerful, suddenly everything was brighter, my mind clearer, my mana spring impossibly deeper, I raised my hand and a bright star of lift errupted towards aerith, it encased her in a perfect barrier spell, the jaws major numerous snapped, and the teeth cracked against the diamond hard barrier it recoiled away from her "everyone fall back now! I won't let you get hurt!" I touched my chest, a burning light gathered and I raised it high above my head, from all around me white light shit across the ground of the Ravine, feather like peels of light lifted from the ground can sting dozens of buffing and healing spells on the committee, and the true effect of the spell made itself known "sanctuary!" Shimmering glassy green walls of a castle like structure rose from the ground, from the ground, it was large enough to fit two major numerus inside of it, I pulled my friends towards me with magic and deposited them through the shimmering walls of the fortress, "what are you doing?" "This is my fight! This thing is my masters mistake and I won't let my friends die because of it!" The spell trapped them inside but made it physically impossible for them to die, it would heal them no matter what, I turned to the snapping hydra like monster "you wanna play? You better be ready because I play rough! Flare!" Three orbs of red and black energy swirled around the number before flying together and exploding in a red black and purple explosion, the number gave a whine of pain, but I used every new skill at my disposal, I launched triple blizzagas and firagas, I cast saber hundreds of times, shimmering swords of magic in the air around me and sending them flying at the number, it tried to attack me but I fought most of its attacks off with my Newly discovered reflega spell, i rained down comets on it despite the acrid smell of smoldering heartless flesh I had yet to deal enough damage to any of the heads to kill them, despite my true trance I was dangerously close to my breaking point. I cast meltdown and quickly entered my own sanctuary to avoid the recoil of my own spell, the solid ball of wind and flame rolled around scorching the ground before crashing explosively into the number, while it had died down I left the barrier before any of them could stop me, but as the smoke cleared I saw that it hadn't done the job, "this is...my past chance... Please work... Please!" I ran at it and just as I was forth feet from it "ultima!" A tiny blue and white flare star drifted at the heartless, I was blinded by the following explosion, I was knocked onto my ass and completely exhausted, I looked up when the light had faded and saw I was surrounded by heads of the number they were snarling and obviously nowhere near dead, I choked back a sob and tried crawling backwards and away from them, I didn't have a drop of mana left, my body was shaking with exhaustion, I'm about to die, I failed, I couldn't fix things, I never helped mason, everything was for nothing! I don't want to die yet! Not before I've actually started living! "N-no..." I felt the tears fall, the boiled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks in fiery rivers, the heads of he heartless were mocking me, toying with me and my fear, and pain, the could kill me at any time, a single bite would do it, even a basic magic spell would be able to do me in with no magic, "it's not fair..." My hand brushed against a jagged rock, I grabbed it and flung it weekly at the monster, "go ahead! Just stop humiliating me!" The second head finally obliged me, the one directly in front of me, it opened it's maw and dove at my I brought my arms up reflexively trying to protect myself and just before my eyes closed I saw something small pitch black appear before me, I waited terrified but I didn't die, I opened my eyes slowly and saw someone standing in front of me, he was tall probably over six foot, he had long messy white , and was wearing a suit of blue and good armor with demons depicted on it, white sashes and fabrics attached to it, he was wielding a sword and shield and using them to hold it's mouth open."h-how..." The man looked back, shining green eyes dancing "I told you I'm your shadow, when you can't fight I will for you." He threw the beast back and his swords shone with electricity before he slashed at its gullet, unlike the wounds that Leon had been landing that had healed near instantaneously he somehow cleaved right through its gullet, the second slash with the short sword and the head was sliced clean off the other heads screamed in agony as the darkness that constituted the head disappeared, the man sheathed his swords and ran at me, he scooped me up and carried me into the sanctuary, despite how big I was he carried me reverse piggy back, with my head looking over his shoulder and back at major mumerus "m-mason...you saved me... I thought I was gonna die..."he doze and rolled us into the walls of the sanctuary just as one of the heads tried to attack, he set me down carefully, "are you okay? Nothing hurt?" I nodded, tears still boiling down my cheeks, he wiped them away with the pads of his thumbs holding my face, "you scared me so much, I was so worried, this thing is crazy, it's too strong why did you try to kill it on your own?" "I didn't want any of you to get hurt, even you mason," aerith fell to her knees and hugged me tightly "you have to let them out of the sanctuary so they can end this, they're your friends they can help Cary the burden, I took a couple shaky breaths and nodded, the shimmering walls of the castle now let the committee in and out, "just promise you won't die on me any of you." The nodded and ran out to confront the number, mason stood protectively over me for a moment before he let out a gasp of pain and green lightning surged across his form and suddenly the somebody was gone and mason was in his heartless form again, "it was only temporary I guess, I must have made the change because I wanted to protect you, and now I'm really tired, I guess this is what you must feel like when you run out of mana." I picked him up "go on, go back into the pendant, you'll heal and feel better from being in there for a while, I'll call you out when I have the strength." He nodded and his shadow form evaporated and his heart returned to the pendant. I looked out at the monster, despite only a minute passing another head was already gone, i must have done a lot of damage myself and it only needed little more, Rinoa had returned with tifa and cloud in tow another head fell to a combined strike from tifa and cloud, he dove from the sky and stabbed it in the neck with his giant sword and tifa thrown down from the sky by Sid kicked the blade through the neck like a meteor and the head died, the last head was unum, which meant it wasn't a threat with just white magic to protect it, besides it's teeth, Rinoa and yuffie launched their weapons at it slitting cute around it's neck, Leon and cloud worked together to back through the preexisting cuts and finally the head came off, cid dove from the sky and pinned the writhing headless body of the number to the ground, I stood and allowed the sanctuary to collapse, I made my way slowly towards the number as it dissipated, hundreds of hearts, I barely was able to move my mouth fast enough in my tiredness to collect them all. "Where are those freaking fairies... I'm going to kill them..." There was a roar of laughter but I was dead serious.

I sat up in my bed, it was night time and u

moonlight was gently sifting in through the library windows, I was still shaken with the fight with major numerus from a couple days ago, heartless appearances were way down, In all the worlds, a chilling calm before the storm, since The combined efforts of the restoration committee, tron, and myself had made heartless extinct in the bastion, it was legitimate to call it radiant garden again, but since there were no more heartless... I couldn't stay here... I had to get back to work, I had concocted a plan long ago, I'd even attempted it twice. But after two failed attempts and I had decided not to try again until I was stronger, and now I was, I still had all of the spells I had mastered through my trance, my tiny spell pool was suddenly bigger than I could have ever imagined, it was now or never, the realm of darkness, I would have a massive chance to take on heartless at Once in their weakest state and in mass numbers in the realm of darkness there is obviously no real light, darkness is strongest against powerful light, so one shadow against another in the darkness was indiscriminate, without light to strengthen them heartless were lethargic by comparison. I didn't want to have to say goodbye to my friends but I knew it would be harder to leave if I did, I pulle the covers over my head and forced my eyes shut "attachments... The more you create prosper the more painful they are to cut, the recoil only gets stronger the more there are, some people love like pianos, like our young master sora, many many strings and attachments, but if too many were to snap the whole piano is pulled ripped apart, even though I was aqua red with few, and trusted even fewer, i trusted one too many, and was destroyed because of it, I know you are kind my boy, but you must never let that kindness cloud your judgement, you are a scientist and a Mage, you are to analyze the world around you, every fiber every detail, know it's inner workings, and understand what role it played in everything around it, and what ways it can serve you, you are not to let beings of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and other minor and trace elements to endanger your life, they are not to be allowed close enough to betray you, and absolutely not allowed close enough to hurt you by losing them, do you understand?" I borrowed deeper and put my head under the pillow "yes master." I remembered that lesson, I was only nine, immediately after he had asked me to recite the exact composition of the human body with all of the minor and trace elements and then quizzed me on which elements were necessary for life, I hadn't understood at first, why was he having me study the body if I was researching hearts? It was because he never wanted me to see people as more than salt and water and bone, he didn't want me to get hurt, but I failed from the start, when I lost my master I was no better than any other fourteen year old, despite my years of study I cried my eyes out. I made the bed and drew up the necessary formulas and sigils to open the gate to darkness, I sank into it I kept my eyes closed as I drifted through it, waiting patiently for my feet to find poor ground, they did and I opened my eyes, a twisted and warped gray path lay in front of me, bizarre truckers of darkness all around I followed the winding road, I could even sense the place boiling around at my presence, I came to a 'plain' like are and hundreds of shadows and neo shadows rose from the good to confront me, I hardly paid them much attention besides the time it took to cast magnega and thundaga, and wipe most of them out, a firaga was all it took to destroy the remaining ones, one collection later and another wave rose up to great me, there were met with aerogas and blizzagas, I repeated the cycle over and over again, nuking the heartless and collecting their hearts, I just walked slowly along the path allowing for them to attacks and destroy them again, I lost track of time, everything was just a blur of magical explosions, I just kept walking and capturing hearts, I had no idea if I was even making a dent, I had set my gate to return me at sunrise eventually the attacks thinned out and I realized I had made it to the safe zone of the dark margin, I saw a young woman sitting with her bare feet in the surf, her hair fell toid back, it was a rich royal blue, she was wearing a black tube top with pink straps across it that did nothing to hide her cleavage, she had white silk sleeves hanging down her long arms and pooled around her shorts clad waist were more silk sashes, her armored boots lay in the sand next to her "hello?" She hadn't yet turned and looked at me, "terra is that you again? It's nice that even though my friends are gone I can still convince my crazy self that they're here with me, she finally did and her face was shocked, "w-who are you? Your not terra... Or ven... I don't know you... How are you here!" She leapt up and summoned a keyblade, she leveled it at my throat "calm down, your master aqua right? The one who fell into darkness?" "How do you know that?" "My master was ansem the wise, my name is prosper, I'm here collecting the hearts of heartless." "Your the one he talked about then... Ansem was here... For a while... Not to long ago, but his heart couldn't maintain his bodiless form in the darkness and he moved on, he told me about what's happened while I've been gone, about a boy keyblade wielder who's been healing the worlds, and about his apprentice... This is real isn't it." I nodded and she dispelled her keyblade "can I... Can I leave here with you...? Please?" Her look was desperate and hopeful I offered her my hand, "come on, I'll take you out of her." She started to cry and leaned against me as we walked back towards my gate "she wrapped both arms around one of mine for support, "this is what another persons touch feels like... I'd forgotten it... You remind me of my terra, is he safe again? Or is he still xehanort?" I shook my head "I don't know... Since the seeker and the nobody died he should be but nobody has found him." I led her through the gate, she hadn't aged a single day, the only reason her hair had grown out was because she had used magic to pretend time was still moving around her, I led her to the bastions kitchen and cooked her everything that i had loaded into the fridge and all of my sweet stash she was crying and giggling as we ate "food! Solid real food! and that's a lot of sweets, you must be a Mage. Or your ventus in disguise" "You can't stop talking about those two, you find them." She smiled appreciatively though I didn't even want to think about how it might be an impossibility "you know, it's weird, your probably the first keyblade wielder that I've managed to have a civil conversation with." "Most of us are pretty block headed I'll admit." I nodded in agreement like a smart ass. I told her everything that had happened, told her when the sun was up I would take her to the chamber of repose to collect her armor and key, and then to yen Sid so she could join the 'heroes of light', I was happy to have found her, they would need all he help they could get, because after all, even if there were a thousand mages like me we still couldn't do the keyblade wielders job, I can't fight like they can, he'll they could cast as strong magic as I could with only days of practice instead of years of study, I hoped they would be enough to end xehanort once and for all.

Once the sun had risen I stopped by Merlin's aqua carrying mason and poking worried mason was trying to convince her there was nobody who was mad at her that aha had saved 'terra-nort'. It was funny seeing mason as a cute baby heartless and not the tall dark and handsome knight- I didn't just think that I didn't just think that. The visit at Merlin's was longer than i had intended mainly because aerith wouldn't stop hugging me and then the stupid gull wings wanted to 'play' with me, finally I just got frustrated and wrinkled away with aqua and mason.

"You owe me big. And a good way to pay me back isn't my having a room full of my least favorite job occupation, everywhere!" I crossed my arms and there was a flash of red magic around my feet, a diamond shaped area of the carpet turned red in about a three too radius "my space, keyblade wielders, devilishly handsome mages." Aqua tried to make an appeal on behalf of her 'friends' though, "they aren't so had trust me, you do don't you? These people won't let you down, they know how important this is to you." I sighed and nodded "fine I'll at least listen." I looked around the room, yen Sid was seated while around him stood king Mickey, sora, Riku, Lea, kairi, and of course aqua and myself. "We are quickly running out of time, we have to amass our heroes of light as quickly as possible, kairi has been trained as has lea, with the great advent of master aqua's retrieval, we have reached five of our needed seven, despite leas ability to use the keyblade he is not one of the seven, with aqua however we have a way to retrieve terra and ventus both of which will need your services." I wanted to say like hell I will but aqua might have shattered if I did "Terra's problem is that his hearts shattered and is spread between the seeker and the nobody, i would have to capture both and perform a dive to his heart, and I'm good, I have more experience than anyone with hearts, but he has been in that darkness for ten years, it wasn't the same sleeping darkness aqua was in, this would be a maelstrom of the malevolent will of xehanort, he may not be terra if I bring him back at all, and with ventus you have his heart, Aqua has his body, problem is mr. Touchy feely over there has melded his heart with ventus', even to me that's irreversible, the whole reason we restored the nobody and xion was because we didn't know which parts were sora and which parts ventus, you want him back But it's beyond me, even if I shattered his heart and went through it peice by peice one of them would end up breaking all together, the memories are the easy part, but emotions how can someone possibly tell how much of exactly each emotion one or the other had." Sora looked broken and aqua like she was about to cry "you won't even try?" I looked at the source of the voice, Riku, "no I won't, I won't perform an transmutation that I know has 0% exactly of success." "How do you know!?" I snapped and shot yen sid a look he nodded and I raised my hand "bounded field open, run simulation upon the destruction and separation of the hearts of sora and ventus." The walls of the tower faded away to a black nothing, white shining lines of formula wrote themselves into existence and an image appeared floating in the blackness that surrounded us on all sides, they watched me attempt to perform the transmutation, over and over, they saw me enter his awakening station, and shatter the station, and drift through the blackness picking at pieces of glass putting them together and assembling them into two new stations, and every time I did and tried to reform sora and ventus, it failed, sometimes only one died other times both did, the process repeated thousands of times over rapidly there were no instances where both survived. I dropped the illusion "don't question how I know something, I've been studying every single day to try and fix all of these foul ups, if you want to bring ventus back sora will have to fall into darkness and let ventus take over, and then sora will have to make his way out of the realm of darkness on his own and be reborn." "How is that possible?" "Because; that's the research my master hid inside you, it's a magical formula, when you became a heartless you retained your emotions, so far an ability that has been exclusive to you, Master worked upon this and even though I don't know it I know him, and I know how his mind works, he would have created the formula specifically for you, to allow you to retain your physical form even as a heartless, that's your job, mine will be to get aqua her boyfriend back since obviously nobody else is volunteering." "Then that is what we shall do, aqua you are to return with prosper to gaia's rest and wait until either the seeker or the nobody makes an appearance, while the rest of you will thwart the appearance of number heartless only, I repeat you should not engage regular heartless in battle." "Why not?" Yen sid nodded in my direction again "the current heart count is at eighty nine thousand and rising, at night I'll be in the realm of darkness collecting more, based on analysis over the years this amount of heartless made inactive should drastically lower the strength of all users of darkness, and therefor heartless should be relatively inactive." Soon I'll reach a tipping point and xehanort will suddenly notice kingdom hearts isn't growing stronger, in fact there is a chance that the cycle of rebirth that kingdom hearts was responsible for will no longer have spare hearts for people to be born with, meaning it would start to shrink. He'll come to me." They all nodded "Am I dismissed?" Yen sid nodded and I warped outside the castle, aqua summoned her keyblade glider and I stepped on summoning light to shield me from the lanes between and she took off. "Why were you so cruel to them back there?" "I just... It hurts... You lost your master didn't you? You know how it feels to have that taken from you, that person who has all the answers and can fix whatever you mess up... And those... People... They took that from me." "You know... I helped them..." "I-I know but... You remind me of him, your calm and passionate... I know your just as scared as I am right now, it doesn't matter if I know as much as I do... I need someone there for me too... Mason can handle most of it but I can't put it all on him, so please help me." Her armored arm came and hugged me. "I've never been to this world before." "This is my home world, the land of night, gaia's rest." The world was marked by the almost porcelain smooth mountain formation that looked like a sleeping goddess, the rest of the world was completely blanketed in incredibly lush forests, and shimmering lakes, the world was known as the realm of night because the sun rose once every four days. I had been born on this world, and this was where I had been trained. "It's beautiful." "I had promised myself I wouldn't come back till things were fixed... But master yen sid made the decision for me:"

My lab was located deepin the forest next to a small meadow set against a mountain the night was illuminated by the worlds three moons and start sky, a restful blue painting the landscape, she landed in the field and we walked slowly towards the paradise that was my home, the house was a large white marble mansion all built in the style of Greece with Corinthian columns and pools of glistening night water. The ground floor was just that a pool type area but at the bottom of the pools were piles of books eternally preserved by the night water "my library." Large shining flowers grew at the edges and statues poured shimmering water into the larger pools, a spiral staircase led to the second floor which was suspended high above the first by the columns. The second floor was living quarters, a living room that consisted of several couches to sit on and a coffee table with undying flowers in a vase, there was a small kitchenette but the majority of the second floor was taken up by the terrace and gardens. The third floor was the spare bedrooms, a handful of white marble rooms hosting a bed, dresser, and balcony each. And the top floor was of course the master bedroom and planetarium. The top floor was domed off, the dome raised by columns and the inside decorated with an accurate map of the stars and planets there was a small girly made bed seated in the middle of the room with a night stand and a small pile of books next to it, the lab was hidden far below ground and host to all of my research.

"Aqua you'll be okay in this room?" She nodded "I'm going to take a shower and head to bed, I know I shouldn't but it's my first night home and..." She smiled. "You've earned a break, I'll be fine, go get cleaned up and rest." I nodded appreciatively and made my way down to the first level, the bathroom was much like the fountain library, it had a large pool to relax and soak in, a shower and porcelain throne and sink. I started to slowly peel away my clothes they were glued to me by sweat and some blood from attacks by heartless. Finally I was stripped nude and slowly slipped into the hot pool of water and sank below the surface before rising up and relaxing with my head dangling out the sidey hair hanging bac, it was getting too long, I knew i needed to cut it. Being home was weird, I couldn't stop memories from coming to me. I was only eight when master came and made me his apprentice, to think that was all before this had escalated.

"Master! Master! Come look! I did it!" I saw a little boy with a tangled mess of black hair running around brandishing a shimmering gemstone, a perfect carbuncle ruby. Ansem leaned down and inspected the boy's ruby " it is flawless, I am proud to have a such a powerful and devoted student." He ruffled the boys hair. The scene shifted to one at night, the boy was carrying a time half his size and reviewed what he'd been working on quickly before grinning at his master "watch I got it!" He raised his hands and summoned up a ball of pure light, he released it and it floated aimlessly as he summoned another and another until he was surrounded by the spell, it was just a basic pearl spell but the elation on his face was magical in its self. He flicked his wrist and the orbs flew to the sky rapidly and exploded in small bursts of light, the boy suddenly collapsed and was scooped up into the arms of ansem. "You surprised me with how hard you've worked since my last visit, but remember, you only have so much mana to use all at once. Conserve your mana and always spend it wisely, without it not only are you just a human, but also a very tired human." The scene shifted again, and again and again, hundreds of scenes of a kind master taking care of his pupil, teaching him, raising him. I shook myself refusing to entertain anymore painful nostalgia, I ducked back under the steaming water and scrubbed myself clean and soaped myself, pouring shampoo into my hands and working it into my neglected hair, "jeez Been way too long since I took a bath." I washed it out and sat back relaxing again when someone out a towel on top of my head and began drying my hair for me I looked over my shoulder to see mason in his human form instead "why are you human again bud?" "The more I practice the longer I can sustain my original form." He responded nonchalantly I gave him a quirky smile and he handed me a second towel, I stood up out of the water and began drying myself, I ignored the blush in masons face "you... Um... Are shameless... And pretty..." I blushed and wrapped the towel around my waist"d-don't say weird stuff... Get out of here already..." He left and just as he reached the door he shrank back to his heartless size, I Watched as he tried to hop up to the door handle but there was no chance, I sighed and opened the door for him "sorry" I laughed and closed the door behind him. I consider drying off and doing other hygienic things before dressing, i tied back my annoyingly longish hair in a short puff if a pony tail at the back if my skull, I pulled on my usual clothes, the kind that I had been told many times were stereotypical of a black Mage, but they were the most comfortable thing and my favorite to wear, it was just a plain black long sleeve tee shirt and blue and white striped shorts. The fabric native to my home world was slight and breathed, it felt cool against my skin, I was happy just to wrap my arms around myself. I went out to find aqua asleep in her room, I tucked her in and went out into the field, "well... I don't deserve peace do I." I summoned the gate to the realm of darkness and sank in, a couple hours blowing up heartless would probably help get aqua's terra back.

I had only been in the realm of dark as for a few hours when I heard a deep chuckle behind me, I teleported, moving a couple hearts ahead of where I had been and turned around, floating there was the seeker, "looks like I was closer to the tipping point than I thought." The seeker touched down and walked uncomfortably close to me, using his height in an attempt to intimidate me. "You have been quiet the surprise to us, a completely unforeseen but incredibly destructive monkey wrench, when the youngest of our group first encountered you he could have sworn he had killed you, yet here you are, stronger than ever. Master was quite impressed, a prodigy who had destroyed such carefully laid plans, he knew exactly what you were though, the student of ansem the wise." "Wow the old fart has a couple brain cells. " "do not insult my superior," I snapped "banishga!" chains of light erupted from nothingness and speared him multiple times, they didn't actually damage him, it was light magic what It did do was bind him in place and constantly sap his energy and mana, he struggled against the shimmering chains, but I must have won the lottery, he didn't know the spell, so he was having a hard time breaking it. "Let me go! I came here to offer for you to join us, not to me chained up." He glared at me, his look full of as much hatred as mine probably was. "Creeper-nort had better come up with a better plan than that! Luring little kids to darkness and fucking them up, first it was you, then it was riku, well guess what, you all made a mistake." I slammed my fist into his gut, and he sputtered "you took my master from me! He wasn't my father, but he was worth a thousand chi-blades to me!" I slammed my fist into him again and again, I true tranced and triple cast banishga, "you've only got a twelth of xehanort's heart and half of Terra's and yet, the monsters was stronger, which leads me to assume any and all horrible pain I inflict on you, will only hurt you, and not him." The seeker panted trying to catch his breath, his white hair spilling over his face "you look good tied up and vulnerable." "Thundaga!" One giant bolt of green lightning crashed down from the darkness.i hit him and dozens of other bolts exploded from him, he cried out, his natural resistances to magic drained to nothing by the banish spells. I blasted him with thunder again and again "b-boy, what makes you think you can do this to me?" "What made you think you could betray my master?" He smirked. "It's my right as one of the inheritors of the worlds." "And it's my right to torture you until your heart shatters, what's more dangerous than darkness?" "Nothing." I shook my head "me when I'm pissed off." "Waterga!" A small aqua colluded star appeared in the air before him before exploding outward in a massive globe of water, the explosive pressure it released would have pulverized a normal human being, but he was still superhuman. The orb encompassed him and remained there supported by a stopga spell, the orb of water with him at the center didn't move, but he struggled wanting air, I didn't let him breath instead I blasted him with thundagas till the stop spell fell apart, the water exploded a second time and dissipated to mist, the seeker shook and sputtered spitting up water from his long desperate for breath "you... Can't... Break... Me." I started laughing hysterically "I can't break you, I haven't used anything above a tier three spell, trust me, you will be screaming for mercy." He spat at me defiantly and I responded with a blizzaga, two spirals of blue magic appeared next to me on either side before a giant hunk of ice shot from both and smashed into him, he cried out in pain. "Don't worry I won't bother with spells that just hurt anymore, electrocution was a little too kind, how about we see how hard it is for me to get your eyeballs to boil hmm?" The next few hours were full if screams, no matter how many times I obliterated him with firagas he refused to give in despite the pain, he just kept regenerating, must have been hell. "You ready to give up yet? I'm getting bored of fire spells." He didn't grace me with an answer so I stepped it up to flare spells.

I exited the realm of darkness with two hearts in hand, one was faintly glowing, it was broken and sleeping, terra's. The other however was almost made of dark emotion, it had been splintered so many times it barely manifested after I ripped it from the seekers body. I took it to ansem's grave and destroyed it, "one down." I headed home and found aqua just waking, she was puring herself a mug of coffee in the kitchen but when she saw what was floating above my hand she nearly dropped her mug, "is that..." I nodded and offered it to her, use took it and it floated above her hands "it's... So warm..." "Don't worry, I made sure that the seeker never had a chance to give terra control of his body so he wouldn't have to feel the pain." She nodded slowly "you... You tortured him?" I nodded and started to cry "d-does... That make me...a...abad person?" I sobbed and wiped at my tears uselessly, she pulled me into a hug and shushed me "no it doesn't make you a bad person, you just mirrored what's been done to you, it's not good, but it doesn't make you a bad person, because you did it out of love."

I had to report to yen sid of course about killing the seeker, and because the old man apparently hates me he had Riku he there too. "Please tell us what happened." I shrugged. "I went into the realm of darkness to collect hearts, it didn't take long for him to show up, he offered for me to join them of course and informed me that I had really gotten xehanort pms-ing, I caught him of guard with banish spells, he's used to fighting keyblade wielders, that was my advantage, I tranced and tortured him till he gave up his hearts, I destroyed xehanort's and gave Terra's to aqua." Riku looked shocked "there's no way he went down that easily..." I shook my head "he wasn't prepared for a Mage, the banish spells not only restricted his movement but drained his energy, my key advantage was he had no magical defense to the spell, obviously unfamiliar with it." Yen sid nodded. "The nobody will come after me without a doubt, though I have my doubts the same trick will work twice, master aqua will be able to provide support." He eyed me at that "prosper please keep in mind that she is a keyblade master, this is her fight much more than it is yours, her sacred duty versus your vendetta." "So you'd what? Have me stand back and not fight? I don't think so, I'm no keyblade wielder and you are not my master, I am helping because our goals coincide." I stormed out following the winding steps down the castle and heard someone running after me, they grabbed my arm and I nearly firaga'd them to a crisp, if was Riku, he looked... Well not like himself, he looked frenzied and afraid, jumpy even. "Prosper... W-why did you torture ansem..." He let go of my wrist, he looked so out of character and fragile it only confirmed what I had assumed "because that bastard paraded around under my masters name... And because I know what he did to you..." His eyes went wide, he had been praying no doubt I didn't know anything, that what had happened had never taken place "come on, walk with me we should talk about it, you deserve some closure." "Y-you won't tell anyone will you!?" I shook my head. "I know I come off as an asshole and I am, but I would never joke about that, I would never play with someone like that, what that monster did is between him and hell." Riku's eyes were blurry with tears, I took his hand and wrinkled, I took us to radiant garden, not because I wanted him there specifically, but because it was raining there, we were standing in the castle forecourt, rain pouring down in both of us " "w-why did you bring us here?" I gave him the warmest smile I could manage "I dunno, I felt like crying and this way nobody can tell." He grinned and I knew he was crying but I wouldn't tell anyone that, I sat down on the staircase and patted the stone next to me. "Tell me what happened, I know I'm a smart ass but I do know my stuff, and I know bottling it up won't work, you'll fall into darkness again." He sighed shakily "I was just a kid, a fifteen year old kid who wanted to see the worlds, see everything, and ansem offered that to me... He destroyed destiny island and took me back here, to hollow bastion, I wanted his help, wanted his power, but I didn't want.. Him... But would come to my room, he would bathe me... He didn't do it at first, just was constantly touching me, letting me, telling me I'm beautiful, I hated it, but then he ran out of patience with my bratty attitude... And he... Raped me. He did it whenever he wanted, sometimes he would just grab me in the hallway and attack me... He humiliated me in every way imaginable... And then he took over my body... But even after sora saved me he continued to haunt me, I want safe in my own head... And then I used his power to defeat roxas, and I got trapped in his body, it was like the ultimate egg in the face from the universe..." I patted his arm whenever he shook "I don't even know what to say, that I wish I could have tortured him more?" He gave a hoarse laugh "I should feel better shouldn't I? Why does it feel so horrible right now then?" "Because it's like we just pulled the bullet out, the wound healed over but we had to open it back up so it an really heal." He nodded "guess that makes me gay huh?" I laughed thinking he wasn't serious, till I saw his look "Riku no. Getting raped by a guy doesn't mean anything about you, Sides kairi likes you. believe it or not when you aren't being a stubborn jerk you can be pretty charming" He blushed and shook his head "no she doesn't stop being ridiculous "hey I know everything else don't i?" "She wouldn't..." "Ask her out, I know we're in the middle of a war but we all deserve some happiness. So since this castle kinda belongs to me, you wanna destroy some stuff?" He grinned "that sounds like fun."

Inside the castle the very first thing we visited was ansem's office, "you sure it's okay for me to just..." "Blow things up, yep, I already got what research I needed, and I was gonna remodel the castle anyway." He grinned like a five year old and summoned his key blade. After destroying ansem's office, riku's old bedroom and the heart chamber Riku said he felt like a million bucks, as payment though I made him help me set up the magical array that would let me reshape the castle, it wasn't much to ask, if it had been just me doing the chalk work for the array it would have taken hours, with him helping it only took two, "this suuuuuuuuucks." "Hey come on I really appreciate your help, i would have asked mason to help but he has heartless hands, not good for precise work." "Why do you need this anyway? If your so strong you can kick ansem's ass." "Because if I didn't use the array it would take way more mana than even I have to do the entire job, it would take days and I would be completely vulnerable, with this crazy massive array i don't have to use very much at all. I stood at the center of it and patted chalk off of my hands, "all I'm missing is a pointy hat." He chuckled and I activated the massive array, I poured my mana into it and the castle began to shift around us, I removed all of the rooms we had destroyed and any rooms that had to do with heartless, I also removed the mazes put in place by maleficent and restored fountain court, I cleaned up everything removing the frightening statues and the thorns, and replaced them with clean white marble and the deep red and purple carpets with the purple and gold that were iconic of radiant garden, I restored the chapel to its former state, changed the heart room into the throne room again, added a dormitory so we would have someplace to sleep and repositioned the library and trons room so they were easier to access, I made lab space directly beneath the castle and added gardens, the destroyed outside of the castle was restored to match the inside, all together it didn't use much mana at all because I was careful to reuse whatever matter I destroyed, so it was less creating and destroying than transmutation. I dropped my hands and the array blew away from around me. "See that wasn't so bad was it?" He shrugged. "Why was it so important for you to remodel the castle?" "Because this is my masters legacy to me, and because this is where all of you will be living. It's not safe for you to stay on your home worlds, not for you but for your family's and friends, yen sid was gonna drop the bomb on all of you tomorrow, there wasn't much option, the tower wasn't a possibility because it is a neutral zone for light and darkness, if it was lost things would get a lot worse, and gaia's rest wasn't an option because evil can't set foot on it for fear of waking Gaia herself, xehanort would just wait for someone to leave the world for some reason and attack, he would pick us off, and the only other world ether of us had a right to use as home base was here." Riku nodded grimly "I know he trusts you because... Well... You've got everything figured out, but I'm just a screw up, Why would you trust me and tell me this?" I shrugged "I don't know about trusting, that's not my area of expertise, but your a pretty sincere person, and besides you trusted me with what happened to you." He gave a sad smile "so, why were you so willing to offer up your castle to get destroyed in this war?" "It won't get destroyed if you guys do a good job winning, sides I'm no king." He looked at me, not like people who knew each other looked at one another, like the way you look at a sad clown. "Hey prosper... Thanks... Thanks for everything today... It means a lot, what you did and what you said, I'm glad you're with us and we have you, it makes this easier ya know?" I looked at him surprised "someone who's willing to help carry the weight when it's not their job, without being the emotional bouncy ball sora is... Just someone whoa there, dependable you know?" He smiled at me and I was surprised as hell when he hugged me "whoa there tiger..." He pulled back apologizing and offered me a fist bump, "you are such a nerd, I raised my fist and dropped it on top of his slightly taller head "I'm worse at this emotional stuff then you are alright!" He laughed "we'll keep helping each other through it right?" "Yep! We'll be at a chick flick in no time!"

I returned to gaia's rest thoroughly tired and emotionally drained, aqua greeted me with a warm smile "you okay?" I shrugged "I'm not good with emotions and I just spent the entire day playing psychiatrist and trusting people!" She giggled and handed me mason "that's it calm down and let all your frustrations fade away as you cuddle the cute heartless." I spat my tongue out and her and squeezed mason into my chest till he looked like he was about to pop "so much frustration! I can't take it!" I flopped down on the couch "huh, riku's not to had a guy." and dozed off. I had a nightmare that night, not about losing my familly, or losing master, not even a ridiculous terrifying for no reason dream, it was about people I didn't recognize, there was fighting, an endless amount if fighting, there were two mages one calm and cynical and one who was like a clown, there was a man with blue hair and a man with guns, there was a girl with blonde hair and the only thing after that was orange eyes. I shot up panting and in a cold sweat, "no, just a freaky nightmare, I'm not clairvoyant, get over it, I already killed one of them, the key blade wielders will do the rest." I tried to calm myself down but sleep didn't come to me at all.

I sat alone and for the first time in a long time lonely in the empty casket of radiant garden, the restoration committee was planning a ball to celebrate the castles reopening, which had the girls squealing and the guys groaning, except for cid who had already revealed his plans to me to spike the punch bowl. But then someone had to go and mention something about a coronation and I fled the scene, those people were my friends. Why couldn't they just understand I didn't want to be ruler of radiant garden, hell I didn't even want to be involved in the keyblade war but I had to for master's sake. I back flipped out of range when a flare spell suddenly destroyed part of the stair case I had been sitting on, I cast a float with one hand and summoned a reflega with another as firagas attempted to try me, I landed through the float spell and eyed what had attacked me or who had attacked more likely, the smoke from the two attacks cleared and I saw two eerily familiar faces, one was wearing a black robe, he was insanely tall and floated leisurely, he had a pale thin face and blonde hair that was plaited with gemstones, his blond hair was done up and spiked so much that two large horns of hairs stood from the side of his head like horns, he had a staff with a large yellow stone at the top that was glowing with energy from the flare spell he had launched, the other one was the clown the tattered remains of the black robe were still on him his blond hair had feathers in it, his face was painted white and his lips purple, his clothes were a bizarre outfit of dozens of different pattern cloth, his hands were still glowing with red magic from what I assumed were his firaga spells. "You two are working for xehanort?" The clown clapped excitedly "what a good guess let's see what you've won?" He launched a blizzard like spell, a giant Ice shard at me but then it froze standing still in mid air, it suddenly shattered and shot at me like buck shot, I was hit because the delay lasted after my barrier spell, I quickly healed myself "what mine of freaky magic was that?" I didn't get a response instead the blond Mage flew towards me and summoned up three glowing magical arrays around him in mid air, I summoned a reflega expecting an attack but none came, "another delay attack?" I was surprised again when one array shattered as a flare came through it, unlike my flares this one was a giant fast moving ball of fire and lightning, it chased me as I dodged more firagas from the clown, but in my evasive maneuvers I came too close to one of the blond's purple magical arays, it shot a volley of purple volts of magic at me which nailed me in the back, subsequently blowing me right into his flare. My body exploded in pain, when the explosion faded I crumpled to the ground and used an enemy skill to sink into the ground as a shadow and flee out of range of their next attacks, I emerged behind a pillar and set to work healing myself, I rolled away from the pillar as It exploded and knew if I didn't take the offensive I was dead, I targeted the clown first because his magic kept me too off balance to fight, "graviga!" The orb of darkness appeared over his head and attempted to crush him but he cast an ultima up into it and it was destroyed, I launched a thundaga through the clearing darkness and non elemental magic and managed to zap him, he danced like he was getting electrocuted but when the magic passed he grinned and licked his palm to slick down a strand of hair that had popped free, "that was tasty, but I prefer fire magic! You'll be well done!" Three cone shaped firagas erupted from him and came at me in zigzagging patterns. I dodged with a backflip and a blizzaga to protect myself, but as soon as I landed a huge magical array erupted from where my heel had landed, orbs of darkness and electricity appeared around me it happened too fast I knew there was no way I could protect myself, I tried to summon a barrier anyway, but the glowing tiles of light that shit up from the floor were too slow as all of the orbs exploded simultaneously, but once again I didn't die, I opened my eyes and saw aqua and Riku had appeared out of nowhere and deflected the trap spells blast "I- great I get saved again and I'm getting emotional..." "Don't sweat it, now who are these guys?" "Two members of the creepernort country club, both are really powerful mages, the blond one uses traps and delayed spells to hit you, the clown uses all powerful spells but they don't act like any magic I have ever seen, his fire spells zigzag and home and his blizzard spells launched then freeze in the air before exploding like a shotgun. "Thought you could have taken these two on your own." Riku joked, but that succeeded in pissing me off, I pushed him out of the way and launched a blizzaga at the clown, he responded with firaga's but was soon attacked by aqua using a time splicer, it wasn't able to stop the clown but what it did do was let aqua teleport all around him and hack at him with her key blade from all directions, the blonde mage didn't bother trying to help his team mate and instead he started summoning up blue flares, they were identical to the regular in all ways but moved slower and were of course pale blue and white as compared to the regular ones, but after he had four in the air creeping towards aqua and me he switched to sending out the regular flares, "prosper I want you to stay back and only use support magic on me and Riku, we can handle this. Raging Storm!" Her key flew from her hand and swirled around here like a saw three orbs of fire spun around her before plunging into the ground and emerging as a pillar of fire, a wind whipped up under her and lifted her slightly into the air and she surged towards the flare spells, they exploded off of her raging storm and the magic that had constituted the powerful spells was sucked up and joined her spell, she made her way towards the Mage and managed to clip him with her fire but he quickly flew back out of range, Riku was artfully dodging the clowns spells and zooming in for quick hits and dark firaga's I saw Riku get hit by a firaga and quickly sent a curaga and a bar-fire at him, he attacked the clown with dark aura. Meanwhile aqua's raging storm had ended and she was trying to cartwheel her way through the blond's mine field. It was frustrating how much better they were able to Handle fighting mages compared to me, that's the downside of magic, there's a balance between a mages mana, magical potency, and magical resistance, I was high mana, high potency incredibly low resistance, but both if the mages seemed to have incredibly high mana, decent potency and incredibly high resistance. Aqua finally reached the blond and was unleashing a magic hour on him, teleporting form above and crashing down in a pillar of light, again and again, and obviously it looked like it was damaging him, Riku Was hit hard with an ultima I cast a float to stop him from getting blown through the castle wall and followed it up with two curaga spells, "Riku are you okay?" He gritted his teeth in pain as he stood, cure spells healed the body but didn't erase fatigue or completely numb the pain of the injuries even after they were gone. I cast a zero graviga underneath my self and shot towards the clown like a bullet, I was too close for any of his spells to be effective, but then I got an incredibly nasty surprise when he rolled over in midair presenting his back to me and razor sharp wings erupted from his back and speared me, he got me in the both shoulders and thighs in deep stabs, he tried to remove his wings but I cast a banishga holding him entirely in place "let me go you spoony bard!" "Like hell clown face!" I summoned up my very limited knowledge of holy magic and summoned up an ultimate level spell "Almagest!" Pillars of white light shit down from the ceiling, varying in thickness they rained down upon him and caused explosions of light where they hit the ground, he cried out in pain, his resistance to holy magic was great to start with apparently and the banishga didn't help, his thrashing only sliced me up more with his wings, when my attack passed I called out for Riku "get over here and beat the snot out of him while he can't move!" "You need to get away from him your bleeding!" "It's just blood! I have mana left I'll just revive myself if I have to, but end this guy now!" Riku didn't hesitate and ran over and began using powerful techniques I knew he had picked up from cloud and Leon, he led off with a cross slash, three powerful slashes that summoned a crest in mid air which shattered with explosive force, but then he used a climhazard driving his key into the clown and leaping up high into the air dragging his blade with him, and once he was in the air he used Leon's fated circle causing a red shockwave to slash down at the clown, he was preparing another attack when the clown suddenly exploded in a powerful aura, my chains shattered and I was blown back riku flying in the opposite direction, I teleported to riku's side and set to work healing us, and looked at what the clown had become, his clothes had been ripped away leaving just a dark red loincloth to modest him, his insanely muscled flesh had taken on a purple hue, his face had changed into a demons, his lips peeled back to show razor sharp shark like teeth, his eyes solid gold and sinister, from his back remained his wings two angelic and two demonic, and of course that annoying red feather I swear I had blasted off of his head a half a dozen times, the magic energy pouring off him was almost manic, violent even, "gaze upon The Lord of magic kefka!" I glanced away from the so called lord of magic to see that aqua had beaten the other Mage to a pulp, he was completely on the defensive evading her as gracefully as his injuries allowed "kefka! Unleashing your full power now will do no good, I am wounded and have to retreat, and three against one is dangerous, come!" Kefka sneered "stupid emperor, who told you that you were in charge of me?" "Xehanort did number nine." "Blah blah blah fine but at least let me show them what true power is!" The demon clown raised his hand and a magical array appeared directly above him, a half sphere of crackling black and white energy emerged from it, kefka and the emperor disappeared into corridors of darkness but the array kefka summoned moved around and began dropping orbs of white energy, we did our best to evade but the orbs would explode on contact into giant globes of black and white static that left craters in the ground, when the spell finally ended the castle was even more wrecked "I just freaking cleaned this place up! I hate clowns!" Riku ran over to me and grabbed my arm, shocking me when he cast a cura on me "you're not hurt are you?" I shook my head "just my pride, first edict as ruler of radiant garden condemn all clowns to death."

After we had licked our wounds and restored the castle we had to meet with yen sid who called together all the keyblade wielders too, he was already planning in dropping the 'your going to be living in radiant garden' bomb but now it was strategy making time because we had just learned the identities of two more of the seekers of darkness, and that they were dangerous and assholes. "So our current hit lists consists of number one creepernort, number to stupid head terra-" aqua have me a mama bear look and I rolled my eyes "number three braig, four is the blue haired creeper worshiper." "Isa." Lea provided. "Five is the emperor, and six is satan's harlequin kefka, I also know that there is a blonde girl in the organization but don't know anything about her, which leaves the identity of four unknown and two creepernort still has to recruit since sora didn't get creeped and since I introduced the seeker to my boot." We know how most of them fight which is an advantage to us, but they outnumber us, even counting me and lea we still only have seven, seven and a half if you count the parts of Terra's heart that I got back, which means until we get terra back and sora gets ventus back we just have to stall for time, keep taking out organization members when we can, as long as he doesn't have thirteen when we have seven everything should work out, our plan is this, keep his numbers down while we build up ours, he won't go after the princesses of heart because kairi is one of them, and even if only kairi is trained for combat the princesses all of protective enchantments and a lot of friends, including us, he won't want to involve so many people even he isn't that confident. Plus it's dependent on that he can get the princesses and then take kairi from us, so if he did try to take the princesses we would make kairi priority one. The lynchpin is that we can't just not get ventus and terra back, I've been studying time magic similar to the spells creeper used, the trade of giving up his body for mobility in time also means he has protection from normal means, it might take seven lights to destroy him, and if that's not possible we seal him in the pendant." I tuned out of it after that, I didn't care to hear them I already had my plan, I listed to the explosion of protest as yen sid informed them that the castle of radiant gardens was their new home, Riku knowing this ahead of time tried to advocate for yen sid and I, but it wasn't going too well, when the protests finally died down and everyone returned to their home worlds (my home world in aqua's case) and collected their belongings and said their goodbyes just in case. Meanwhile yen sid kept me behind and stroked his beard, his giant heady eyes pensive "Merlin and I have discussed something." "And that is?" "The need for a contingency plan." "In case we lose." He nodded "should the keyblade wielders be lost there needs to be in place a back up plan, something that we wouldn't consider a viable option with them." "Something that would require sacrifice you mean, ansem planned for that too, he planned plenty far ahead, should a world be lost for some reason or another in a last ditch effort to stop whatever evil infested it before it could spread he developed a formula and incredible magical array that would work through the idol theory of science, aka sympathetic magic, by destroying ones heart they could destroy the heart of a world, the ensuing destruction would result in a black hole, though this is xehanort we are talking about, assuming we lose the key blade wielders I can also assume all of my friends will be dead, and any chance for avenging my master thoroughly wrecked, I'll be willing to do the deed, can I go now? I've been attacked by two high class mages and am about to have a castle full of rowdy teenagers with swords." "You are growing fond of them?" I shrugged "of some of them, but for the most part I'm trying to protect them from you stargazer, believe me I know you don't really care about them, or me for that matter, you care about your precious balance, light and darkness, we're nothing but Chess pieces acting of our own violation but to your end." He nodded "it is a sad fact, I do withhold emotional attachment from clouding my judgement in these great times, in another life I would wish to do it all differently, but in this one the balance must be protected no matter the costs, it has been the trend for the forces of darkness to disrupt the balance, but should the forces of light push too far it would also be my duty to maintain the balance." "Blind and cruel duty, almost makes me wanna lose."

Returning to gaia's rest, gathering up some clothes and a couple spell books and research papers and basically everything that I had worked on in the last head because now I had a new office all to myself, I deposited it all in my new office in the castle before heading up to the dorms and finding sora and Riku fighting over bunks, I resolved it by smacking them both over the head and handing them a coin before helping kairi and aqua settle into the master bedroom "are you sure it's alright? I mean this is your castle isn't it?" I shook away kairi's concern, "no it's fine, besides if you were in the same room as sora and Riku they would probably continue the macho contest trying to prove their worth to you." The girl blushed and fainted and I broke out laughing. Aqua scolded me "you shouldn't tease her like that! Besides we all know who she'll pick." "Aqua come on we're teenagers I'm living vicariously through their drama." "Why don't you have teen drama of your own?" She threw a pillow at me and I caught it and stuck my tongue out at her "because the closest person in age to me on gaia's rest is three months old." "Well you would have had the same range of emotions." She teased and I hurled the pillow so hard it could have broken concrete.

Most everyone after settling in had settled in to the library, aqua and kairi were reading, sora and lea had attempted to use a page from a book and make a paper airplane and were currently in time out, the king was with the stupid stargazer, Riku was surprising me most as usual volunteering to help with my research when he could "okay if your all comfortable me and mason are gonna go work in the lab." At that kairi shot up, "um can I come watch you work? It's just, I'm trying to get better at magic, and your like the expert." I shrugged "okay though aqua could teach you just as well." I led her down to the new study and pulled out my board of carbuncle stones I handed one of the flawless rubies to her "this is a carbuncle stone, carbuncle is the name of a summon, we don't know how to summon him anymore but we still know how to make the stones, basically it's solid mana, instead of using your own mana to summon carbuncle mages would make the stones and that way they would be able to recharge their mana and be able to fight alongside carbuncle at full strength, but now all these are good for is restoring mana in a pinch, some of these are flawless, they will completely restore anyone's mana I feel fit, but I've been making these for almost as long as heartless have been around, some of the older ones would only have as much mana as I had when I was a kid." "Why not use items like an ether?" "It's a little awkward to down an energy drink in the middle of a battle isn't it?" She nodded "so I'll be keeping a couple of these on me at all times, and you, aqua, and the king should too, since you use more magic than the others." I tossed her a powerful one and she slipped it into her pocket, I picked up mason and handed him a couple ruby's too, he hid them in his shadow body "that's a neat trick too." "Yep little mason here is good for a lot of things, he's got all my research in him and knows what to do in basically any scenario." "Like what?" She asked curiously "well if someone gets critically injured in a fight and there's no hope to save them he is to collect their heart if I'm not there, as long as we have the heart, and considering if it's a keyblade wielder we'll have the added benefit of their nobody, we'll be able to being them back, for other people it isn't so easy, most don't form nobodies at all, and those who do rarely don't come out human, which is why if i die mason is supposed to capture my heart and make me into a heartless that can function like a human." She nodded grimly "you've thought everything out haven't you?" I shrugged "we can't afford any losses, now you wanted to learn some more magic, studying will help you in theory but we should probably head out to the courtyard."

"So what magic do you know?" She blushed bashfully "well I... I know all of the cure spells and a good amount of support spells, and offensively I have all of the fire, water, and holy spells." "As in..." She nodded "holy, holyra and holyga, mr. Yen sid also taught me holyja but I couldn't move for a day after casting it." "Wow, but no expertise in other elements?" She nodded "well it doesn't look like any of our enemies have a real elemental weakness besides obviously light, but then again excluding you every other user of light is weak to darkness stronger than their light. Lucky princess, if you wanna learn something it would probably be best for you to learn an ultimate class spell or two besides the holy familly, how about for today I try to teach you one defense spell and if you've got any mana left we can try and teach you ultima, it's probably about the same power wise as your holyja spell but with the added benefit that it's non elemental." I coached her through the sanctuary spell and watched as she attempted to perform it over and over again. There was no way for me to help her so I just offered her words of encouragement and studied some spells of my own. Riku came back a while later, with the books I had wanted to borrow from the stargazer and a couple components I had asked for, of course he saw kairi working and flirted a bit, which I honestly didn't know how to feel about.

"Sora!" The brunette tried escaping sprinting down the castle halls like his life depended on it, and it did "thunder!" "Thunder!" "Thunder!" "Thunder!" "Thunder!thunder!thunder!thunder! Thunder!" He kept running after getting zapped a dozen times Riku grabbed me "whoa hot stuff no no frying sora!" "They are only level one spells, and he ate my dango!"

"Aerith make it stop, please I don't wanna." "Your king of the castle you have to be there, and no you can't show up wearing a leather jacket and jeans, wow déjà vu I gave this exact same speech to squall." She giggled and foxed my tie, "do I have to wear the scarf?" "It was Iconic of ansem the wise it would be a good idea." I groaned and wrapped it around my neck, "make it blue." The deep red velvet became a deep navy, and I wrapped It around my neck "happy? and every single guest has an eject spell on them already?" Aerith nodded "Merlin said he out the seal down at the main gate, anyone who isn't in the committee or a keyblade wielder will be shot back to their homes by the spell if anything happens. "Why are you doing this to me..." I sighed and she walked off and I teleported to the throne room which had been transformed into the ball room, it was already full of guests from all over radiant garden, even Scrooge showed up, the din in the room came to a complete silence when I had been spotted, after a minute of silent panicking I knew I had to start "hello everyone, it's an honor that has been passed down to me, as the last of ansem the wise's apprentices, to welcome you all to the grand reopening of radiant garden castle, when the heartless came all those years ago we were left without a leader and a home world, even believing that ansem was the one who betrayed us, but now thanks to the work of many we have corrected the history books and are beginning to rebuild, so... Um... Let's give it up to the restoration committee for making this possible." There was a roar of applause "okay start the music and dancing and get me off of here now..." I teleported away as the band struck up, I reappeared under the table the committee had been sitting at, "that was so embarrassing, mason grab me some booze." Mason appeared from the darkness and I lifted him so he could reach his arm out from under the table and look for a bottle "mason?" Tifa looked under the table and saw me "oh, jeez your so bashful, get out here, come on nobody is going to make you give another speech." She grabbed my arm and yanked me out, damn super woman. I took the seat between her and yuffie and wanted to crawl under the table or between tifa's bust and try to hide "this is so terribly aweful." Yuffie patted my back "it could always be worse, come on let's to dance." "Y-yuffie neither of us know how to ballroom dance!" She realized this and shrugged" fine I'm going alone, I'll have to find an actual gentleman." I stammered "I'm a gentleman!" I went after her but lost her in the crowd, someone tapped my shoulder, it was a woman with silver hair done up in a bun, she looked to be in her mid twenties and was wearing a masquerade mask with a lion-esque motif like many of the party goers and a champagne red dress that was collared by black feathers; the dress had a slit along her left leg that showed a lethal amount of skin all the way up to her thigh. She had long white gloves on her arms and her lips were painted purple "so if your such a gentleman would you care for a dance? I'll even be kind enough to let you lead." I blushed and then nodded, I knew the steps of a waltz, I had just never done it, I took her waist and held our hands on the next up beat I started moving us along with the general crowd desperately trying to keep my composure and not yell out loud 1,2,3 with the beat, after a minute I slowly relaxed she was giving me a smirk "your not bad for a beginner, a little shy in your movements, but not bad." "T-thank you ma'am... Um can I ask why you asked me?" She gave a short laugh "well I thought it was proper to at least dance with the king of the castle before we turned it into a ballroom blitz." He words hit like a bag of bricks, she was one of them, she wasn't the blonde girl from my vision either... "Mateus is around here somewhere too, of course your friends would have been made aware of what he looks like." I tried to pull apart from her but was frozen in the dance "don't bother, it's a time loop, you'll be dancing with me till we're done talking." "What do you want? What's the point in talking to me, if the only reason your probably here is to kill me, lea, and the restoration committee?" She smirked I tried to summon up my mana but it was dormant when I entered the time loop and she planned on having it stay that way "I wanted to meet the Mage responsible for the seekers death." "Well here I am, please explain to me, why would you willingly join xehanort? He is just using you to make the chi-blade, you'll just die with the rest." "You misunderstand child, we are merely playing nurse keeper for the pieces of his heart, we nurture it, fuel it, and he will use his own heart, grown into many hearts, to complete the chi gets the blade and will share the power he acquires with it." "So his vessels just needed to have enough darkness in their hearts to nurture his broken hearts to full strength." "Yes, I believe the key wielder sora did something quite similar with the heart of ventus, did he not?" "He did. So why haven't you made an attempt on my life yet?" "Because, in the lack of sufficient light or darkness to mend a heart mana is just as worthy a substitute, it would simplify things greatly if you became a vessel, if it remains impossible to convince you then it will be time to attack." "There's nothing wrong with the offer, I'm a Mage, someone offering me power and the heart of all worlds should get an affirmative answer, but, dear xehanort made the mistake of killing my master, and now he's hurting my friends, so the answer is no, I've already killed the seeker, and I wasn't kind, I took my time and tortured him, your a lady, you can't love violence and bloodshed and pain, give me xehanort's heart and we wont have to fight. She laughed tossing her head back "not fighting, is not an option, xemnas is aching to take a bite out of you, he will be seeking revenge for his twin." "And I'll make sure he suffers just as much pain." "All these guests are therefor forfeit you know?" I smirked, no matter how powerful her time magic was that she could run a seemingly endless loop, she hadn't detected the eject spell. "It appears your no longer in the talkative mood, pitty." She broke apart from me and the loop ended, finally free I activated the eject spell, leaving the restoration committee, the keyblade wielders, the emperor who abandoned the illusion of a resident of radiant garden, kefka, the woman in front of me, and the girl with blonde hair from my vision "clever boy." The emperor called to the woman "Ultimecia, do we have a new recruit or not?" She raised her arms and her dress changed, the color remaining but lengthening and splitting into a velvet rob that barely covered her bust, the sleeves extending out and became claws, her collar of black feathers growing and even wings erupting from either her back or the mass of feathers, magical symbols painted themselves across her chest face and legs, and her hair fell from its bun, being put up in horns similar to the emperors. "We do not." My clothes melted into battle attire, black shirt, blue leather jacket and white and light blue striped pants "what a cute little black Mage you are, but I will not be your opponent." To clarify she pointed at Leon, who was darting towards her blade drawn "Ultimecia!" Suddenly the entire hall was a battlefield, the emperor was obviously much more powerful than he had been because he was grappling with aqua, kairi, cloud and tifa. Kefka was fighting cid, yuffie, Mickie, Lea and Riku, Ultimecia was fighting with Leon, Rinoa and sora, aerith was running about healing, leaving me and the blonde girl, kefka called out to her already in his god of magic form, "tina dear, go ahead and kill him." The girl looked lost and guilty, she had a tiara on her head and the magic that was radiating from it was definitely of the dark variety. "I-I'm sorry." She dropped her hand at the ground and a small fire burst to life, she raised her hand back up quickly and the fire darted at me, I blocked it easily, but the fire shot up into the air "firaga." It exploded in a starburst orb of fire that singed right through my barrier, and made good progress." "Why? Why are you with them?" "I have no choice." Was her only response, she spun and five orbs of light, much more powerful than pearls, holies bloomed to life and flew at me, I deflected them and responded with a darkga. Four of a of darkness zooming at her and swirling around her before crashing together in a waterline burst of darkness. It definitely hit her and did damage but she kept going not even trying to heal herself, she slammed her hands into the ground I didn't sense the spell till it hit me a blast of water beneath me, a flood spell, things were not going well, all three of the mages had transformed, kefka into his god of magic, the emperor into an even more hellish version of himself, and Ultimecia had transformed into a giant anthropomorphic black lion with silver wings and red accents, their power was ridiculous, and to make things worse, our second best healer: me, was busy trading blows with this puppet girl, she didn't even attempt to block my attacks, "stop! If we keep this up you'll die!" "My life doesn't belong to me... Please... Kill me." I blocked her meteor spells, "no I won't! Stop!" She started to cast ultima and I surged at her, I knew what was happening, it was the crown, I laid my hands on it and tried to yank it off, but it wouldn't budge, the ultima caught me right in the gut, damaging both of us, when the spell passed I let out a groan in pain, the magic hadn't broken through my resistance but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell, it just didn't wound me like a blast like that should have. Since I couldn't remove the crown I poured my mana into it, trying to overload it, the metal grew hot against my hands before finally shattering, she have a gasp and collapsed. I sighed but what was waiting me when I looked up wasn't good, the committee was wiped out, too weak to fight, Riku was out for the count, sora was barely on his feet, the only ones still holding their own were aqua and Mickey, kairi had joined aerith in a support role and was healing, but this wasn't good, "aerith! We need to use great gospel!" She nodded but looked terrified "I can barely use it at full strength, and I'm running low!" "Mason give her a carbuncle!" My shadow shot towards aerith and stepped out from it as mason, he reached into his chest and pulled out a flawless carbuncle, "kairi you too!" I teleported next to them "we're gonna use a trinity!" "Light!" Kairi called out the three of us were encircled by a powerful magical array, we raised out hands, I shot all of my mana from my body and into aerith and kairi did the same, "great gospel!" The pillar of light that shot from the trinity into the air, it reached the incredibly high ceiling of the throne room and a burst of light made the entire room vanish, replaced by a rainy sky, water poured down, but aerith released a second pulse of magic and the sky cleared, nine cherubs descended from the cloudy sky, and there was a shower of light everywhere. Great gospel was aerith's ultimate technique, it fully healed hp and mana, and granted a temporary immunity to all damage, and with the amount of energy we had poured into it, if even filled everyone's limit ability charges. The spell faded and every single fighter was at their peak. Except for the three of us who had been healed too, but our mana was gone and casting magic did cause fatigue to the body, and a spell that big took a lot "aerith fall back, we don't need you over casting and frying yourself to death." Mason appeared and offered me the last carbuncle stone I had him storing, I took the stone and drained it of mana, I summoned up a barrier around the four of us as one of the emperors flare spells approached, Ultimecia was struggling with Leon who was using renzokuken, sora was using ragnarok, and Rinoa had grown angel wings and was casting meteors. Kefka was getting bit from all sides, cid had summoned an illusory dragon, yuffie was using doom of the living, Lea was a column of fire spinning around the transformed clown, and Riku and the king were using some kind of dual limit, the emperor even in his powered up form was playing only defense, he couldn't hold up to clouds omnislash, tifa's final heaven, and aqua's light bloom. I started blasting all three seekers with status magic, finally I had managed to poison all three and used an ultimate class spell, similar to twilight "exterminate!" A dome like blast of green and black magic exploded from all three, It cancelled out the poison spells but caused more damage than the basic status magic could ever hope to. I launched flares while kairi used holy spells, The emperor and kefka were the first to go down, "damn you... Ultimecia, we have to fall back, leave the weaklings and take the Mage, if you can't kill him debilitate him!" The emperor escaped while kefka back to clown mode was going after the girl I had fought "don't mind me, I'm just reclaiming my doll." "Like hell you will! That was a slave crown, your using this girl as a vessel against her will." He tried to ready a spell but he was wounded, the darkga i cast at him collided long before had a chance to deflect it or block. He retreated too, "prosper look out!" I whirled around and before I had a chance to do anything ultimecia's giant clawed hand closed around my head "know despair boy. Draw." I felt something proving my mind, and them it was like something was ripped out, she disappeared and I dropped to the ground clutching my head.

I woke up in he dormitory, the beds were empty, my bare feet connected with stone floor as I stood and headed towards the grand hall, the damage from the battle remained, I would have to repair it later, I heard voices coming from the library and found everyone in a semi circle surrounding a monster with the shape of a woman, but her skin was pure white, her hair was wild and tangled behind her like fire, it graduated to a light purple towards the end, as did her clawed hands and toes, "st-stay away! I don't want to hurt anyone!" I recognized the voice as the girl I had fought I pushed past everyone holding my head which still felt like I had had an anvil dropped on it "calm down guys, she's just in trance, you've all seen me do it." "Yeah but you don't turn into a-" "if you say monster your dead. My trance isn't as powerful as it should be because I was using science to artificially activate it for so long, I knelt in front of the girl "hey, you don't have anything to be afraid of, these people aren't so bad, ignore cloud and Leon, their faces don't do any other expressions besides glaring." "Y-your the boy who saved me aren't you?" I nodded. "Do you remember everything?" She shook her head. "Things from when the crown was put on me are fuzzy, but the recent things are clearer." "You don't want to help them right?" She shook her head, "no I don't want to have anything to do with xehanort... But kefka... He's done such horrible things on my world... I have I stop him." I shot a reassuring look back at everyone and finally able to calm down terra reverted. "Has someone gone and told yen sid?" They shook their heads "okay Tina you can come with me," I snapped my fingers trying to summon the tesseract, I felt my mana leave me to try and open the gate. But nothing happened "huh?" The pain in my head started to grow, I tried again and again to summon the tesseract, no matter what I did I couldnt, I tried teleporting and didn't manage to move, I was so panicked kI tried to cast firaga at aqua knowing she would have no trouble putting it out, I couldn't even summon a spark "what's going on... My magic..."

"Someone has corrupted your magical circuitry, most of your spells have been ripped out, the knowledge of how to use them is still there, and you mana remains unaffected, but when you try to activate these spells the mana is still consumed but no alteration to reality, magic, is produced, it's likely that the spells that were taken were taken for the specific purpose of crippling your fighting ability." I tried to stay calm but I felt panic rising up in my chest, "what spells are left? What didn't the witch take?" The stargazer hummed thoughtfully "your white magic spells seem largely unaffected, but basically all of your elemental spells are gone, only the gravity spells, and the banish spells remain, of your status magic your poison, sleep, and stop spells also seem unaffected, the troubling matter is that your ultimate level spells were severely depleted, your flare, holy, meteor, even ultima were all taken, and more." I looked at aqua for some kind of help "how can we get them back? How is it possible for someone to steal his ability to cast magic?" "It appears as though the vital beliefs that allowed him to use each spell, the drive that allowed him to bend reality to the desired effect has been stripped away, it's likely that the witch Ultimecia has taken them and stored them within herself, otherwise they would return to you." "So... I can't fight... I can't use any combat magic, and i can't use my mana to even activate an array... What do I have left? I can still collect hearts but have no way to kill the heartless." "Obviously defeating the witch of time will restore the balance, until then the only option is for you to remain in the back lines only , or to attempt spell weaving." "Creating spells of my own, they would have to be completely new... It's my only option I guess. What about Tina ?" "I'm expecting for her to be an inspiration to us, proof that xehanort will stop at nothing, even risky gambits, which proves we are making an impact."

"God damn it!" Another magical array exploded uselessly, I hadn't managed to weave a single spell yet, i rubbed at my eyes furiously trying to suppress tears of frustration. Various key bladers checked on me but I yelled till most left,Riku stubborn as ever was lurking outside the lab, it was so frustrating, if I couldn't develop spells new to me I wouldn't be able to do anything! "Ruin!" "Ruin!" "Ruin!" "Fall into ruin!"

"Where are you going?" "Castle Ultimecia, I pulled the location from squall's subconscious, that witch is going down, she's prosper enemy number one, xehanort's taken a temporary back seat. First the bitch joins the creepernort country club, now she's taken my magic, and she ruined Leon's life, oh yeah, she's going down." Aqua grabbed my arm stopping me from stepping onto the new magical array I had created "your worrying me! Your acting like a key blade wielder and not a scientist! You aren't strong enough yet, you can't possibly have weaved enough spells or-or-" " aqua I'm fine, I've blown through half of my reserves of carbuncle rubies spell weaving, I can't afford creating anymore spells, if I'm going to be worth anything in this war I need my magic." She shook her head "why are you going alone! We can help!" "No I need you here, this war was meant to work without me in it, and I trust you guys that it will if I die, and if I win, well, I'll he stronger and better able to help." "You idiot! You do help! What happened to your superiority complex?" I laughed. "I'm not a hero, It's a powerful skill exclusive to mages, bluffing, lies, false confidence, I can only only do it for so long though, and without my magic I can't even lie to myself, look, in all seriousness there was a less than eight percent chance I would survive this war, not counting this fight I'm going to be having with the witch, my chances are 0% without my magic. Thanks for caring aqua. Take care of Tina and everyone else for me kay?" I pulled out of her grip and stepped on the strange new array just as Riku can barreling down the castle steps towards me, I winked at him before activating the array "bifrost."

I reformed out of a rainbow stream on the front steps of castle Ultimecia, I strolled up it and the doors opened themselves before me, I stepped in and found a large candle out foyer, in front of me was a large velvet clad staircase, "come out witch! I know you know I'm here." She appeared at the top railing of the stairs, a dainty delicate wine glass somehow precariously grasped in her claws, "what a pleasure, shall we dance? I'm surprised, I know very well that the only magic I couldn't take from you that wasn't offensively based is the power over stars and shadows, and surely you know my darkness is much stronger than either your light or darkness." "Haha your soo smooth lady, your a real lioness aren't you, thinking your toying with a little mouse, well let me tell you something-" it worked I got her off balance with my words, I sprang into action, leaping at her "ruinga!" A pearl of black surrounded in a shining star of light shot from my hand it was about the size of an apple, she tried to get out of the way but the spell tracked her at surprising speed, I landed where she had been standing and watched as it exploded in a cloud like blast of light, she was slammed into the wall so hard she cracked it with her back, she recorded and dropped to the floor "h-how! I took everything I'm sure of it! What have you done to my vision little boy." I chuckled and began charging a much stronger spell, five seconds, all I needed was five seconds, "a nasty little side effect, of the spell ain't it." Just two more seconds! "Insolent child!" A ball of blue fire appeared in her palm, she threw it towards me "shockwave pulsar." It arched towards me and exploded outwards becoming a massive ball of energy, it was sucking me in, there was no way to finish the spell and not get blown apart in the process, I leapt back out of range as it suddenly compressed and detonated, the spell would have guaranteed me a win, but it's charge time and range made it difficult to use, instead I used another new spell "whisperga!" Black delicate runes drew themselves into the air, they resembled butterflies, and then were engulfed in a massive bout of lilac flame, the five I had conjured flew away from me in sweeping arcs towards the witch, who's vision had apparently cleared, "fire magic, how quaint." She swept her clawed arm through the air and there was a gust of icy wind, my whisper spells sputtered but refused to go out "what! Those should have extinguished any kind of fire magic!" The zoomed in closer to her and she tried to block them with conjured up axes and swords, but their detonation was incredibly powerful burst of darkness magic, and managed to mostly protect herself from them with her wings and claws, my attack faded and I used a zero gravity to flip high above her and charged a spell sora had taught me "balloonga!" A massive beach ball orb of magic about fifty feet in diameter, it expanded down and out from my hand like lightning in an attempt to crush her, it exploded when it reached it's full size, I dropped to the ground and circled the injured witch, "impressive brat, spell weaving, you are a bottomless bag of tricks." She held both hands up "great attractor!" She glided away from me as gravity began to condense in front of her. Holy shit... That spell will take seven and a half seconds to reach full strength, I began charging, five...four...three...two...one! I held it just until she coalesced a miniature planet and launched it at me "dragonga!" The most complicated spell I had ever crafted drew itself in gold and blue light in front of me, and then the dragon appeared, it's head was easily the dive of a small car, it was surprisingly beautiful, but that didn't detract from it's wicked fangs formed tongue and mouth and eyes ablaze in white fire, it had frill like wings on the side of its head like a cobras, and it's long neck dad plated in the same near crystalline looking scales on its head, it shot out towards the witch, her great attractor rolling uselessly of it's magically impervious scales, she gaped in silent horror as it kept at her befor opening it's jaws and preparing to bite, she tried to evade it, but all she managed to do was let It bit into her sideways, it's bite radius running from her left shoulder all the way in an arc to her left hip, I snapped it's jaw and then dissipated into ambient mana, the wound wasn't immediately fatal, but she either tried to fight and would die, or would try to run, and if she didn't get help, spell was incredibly powerful, and surprisingly used very little mana, but I knew that the dragon I had treated was like a guardian force of legend, it had taken up residence in my subconscious, and I would be suffering mental problems cuz of it, I didn't know to what degree but I could expect memory loss, headaches and robe seemed to come to life, pulling itself and trying to staunch the blood flow "I-insolent brat!" She gave a gasp and jerked awkwardly as if something was being ripped from her, and then it all came back, my magic. I didn't however notice in my excitement that she had drawn out a simple matrix in her own blood, it was displacement magic, one second the wounded witch was there, the next it was xemnas. "This is gonna be fun." He snarled and thorns of nothingness leapt from him, I dodged "darkga!" An orb of darkness coalesced in front of me before exploding outward, four powerful orbs shooting at him, he twisted under the spell and surged at me, an animalistic rage on his face.

"Agh!" I clutch the twin slashes into my thigh, I had twisted out of range before study could do too much damage, but it was still painful and bleeding heavily, the battle had nearly destroyed castle Ultimecia, no matter how much I blasted the nobody I couldn't seem to seriously damage him enough because of his berserker like rage, there was no time to try to use my dragon spell again, It would assure lethal damage, but there was no way I would have five seconds to activate it with xemnas' speed. I back flipped and sent a volley of holy spells at the nobody, the exploded off him but he didn't flinch, he flew at me blades ready to split me in half, "bastard-" I summoned a barrier and shattered it, catching the blow and then managing to throw him off, but he just caught himself and prepared to attack again, even though we were now in free-fall down the clock tower "psycho! Jeez!" I rolled in mid air using magnet to pull myself to the winding stair case, and casting thundaga at him the free bolt of lightning slamming down through the cieling and blasting the nobody at the ground. I teleported to the bridge between the main castle and the master room and doubled over catching my breath, "okay... I really pissed him off, I set about curing and buffing myself in the very short reprieve I had bought myself. But there was a roar and sliding along a thorn of nothingness came the nobody, he dropped got the other end of the bridge I knew he would rush me, I started casting dragon again, this was a last ditch effort, his magic resistance was too high and I was too tired, there was no other way for me to win. Four seconds. He was surging at me ethereal blades shining, three. More blades materialized in the air around him, following him, two. He was only about twenty feet away, I knew my survivability rate dropped every nano second, one second left and he was on me, inches seperating me from his blades. 17% chance he wouldn't be able to impale me lethally enough that I'd die, 100% chance I got stabbed. .3 of a second left he had already plunged both sabers in his hands into my chest, finally the spell launched and the dragon didn't even bother emerging past it's jaw, it snapped them shut and disappeared with everything from the nobodies knees to mid chest leaving with him, the dozen ethereal blades still in the air surged forward and speared me though the chest and stomach, survivability rate, 0%, mana required to revive: insufficient, estimated time of death, 9 seconds due to mana support. "Hm-mason!" He rose from the shadow I blocked out his cries of my stupidity and how I needed help, I saw the heart of xehanort shatter, and the last parts of Terra's heart form, mason couldn't operate my pendant, he could store one heart, which meant mine or Terra's "manual override, heartless subject #p001, initiate storage of the heart of terra." "Prosper what are you doing!" His body moved against his will, "you can only save one of us, and the other will be lost, terra is more important, take him, and take the pendant back to the castle, kay?" "P-prosper! Stop! It's not fair! It's not fair for you to die! Why! You hate key blade wielders! Why are you sacrificing yourself for one!" I chuckled choking on my own blood now that my mana was about to run out entirely "I didn't want to see aqua cry. And since Riku is gonna do something stupid too, don't let him... Mace... I love you little guy." Death was... It wasn't fun.

After my body ceased to function I wasnt greeted by the pearly gates of heaven, not by a pit of fire, not even by the warm maelstrom of darkness that was the realm of darkness, this was complete absence of all sensory information, I was just a kind on air, a ball of steam waiting to dissipate. I considered the fact of a few minutes that trading my life for Terra's and possibly killing Ultimecia had meant th y I had boosted the key blade wielders chances by 9%, which was nice because things seemed pretty dim no matter how early on the battle really was. Finally I realized a scary fact, I wasn't just a mind on air waiting to dissipate into nothing, I was still whole, nothing had happened, this might be what the rest of my eternity was like. How long would I be like this? Forever? With just myself for company? Didn't seem like my sanity would last long.

"Wake" and I did, I opened my eyes and look around, the terrain was strange, made of plateaus and craters of grey stone set against a starry sky, I was sitting with my back against something cold, my legs appeared out in front of me, "were they always so short?" I stood and picked myself up, "the ground looks a lot closer now." I didn't like this, I summoned a mirror in front of me, and what I saw made no sense, I was staring at an eight year old version of myself. I stood barely four feet tall, my hair was shorter than it had been and twice as messy, I was once again wearing my big round horrible concentric trifocal glasses, my bangs somehow managing to fall into to them, my face had lost all semblance of a man and was instead cherubic, the glasses and hair only managing to make me look cuter. I was wearing a baggy long sleeve black shirt and grey shorts, my feet clad in roman style sandals. "This is some kind of cosmic joke."

I wandered around for hours, no matter what I did I couldn't get used to my old body "what is your name boy?" I turned and saw a man standing above me on one of the plateaus, he was tall, probably six and a half feet, powerfully built, he had dark tanned skin, greatly contrasting the grayscale terrain, his face was set into a tired frown, his hair was long and Snow White, parted along the left side so that most of it was longer going to the right and hung to the side of his face and mid way down his back, he was wearing a pitch black cloak and kilt, and had prayer heads wrapped around his biceps wrists and ankles "it's polite to introduce oneself first." "No lack of bravado in you is there boy." "The name is prosper." He nodded "you may call me golbez." "So golbez where the hell are we?" He chuckled, that smirk as gonna get annoying fast. "Where all sorcerers who lose their hearts go. The moon." I shook my head "I was not elected a sorcerer, and we can't be on the moon , it's a fabrication, the presence of the 'moon' is merely a reflection of kingdom hearts, there is no real moon." He nodded grimly "so you are in fact more than a sassy child. But you claim not to have been a sorcerer why? I can sense your mana, it's easily equal to my own." I tried to avoid giving him a cocky grin, "a sorcerer is one who is completely attuned to the ether in the air, someone who would be able of class A conjuration and have the ability to cycle Mana through their body tirelessly. I can't do either." "Obviously you underestimate yourself, to answer your earlier question I believe you are correct about the illusion of the moon, however, there is no other explanation for a world such as this, with no discernible day or night, and no heart." "You've attempted to find the heart?" He nodded "it's completely devoid of life, just an empty rock." "Are there other people?" "There were. My grandfather was here for a time, as was an evil fairy, he died, and she presumably made it off somehow." "How did your grandfather die?" "The only inhabitants of this world are the eidolons." "Your screwing with me, there's no way, they have been lost for like millennia." "They live here, to my knowledge the only way off this moon is to defeat bahamut." "Bahamut, the bahamut? King of the dragons, rode down on dalamud and destroyed the singular world birthing the other worlds?" "I have a horrible sense of time but I'm fairly certain I haven't been here that long, but I am partial to that theory as well." "I usually don't assume that people are insane but I'll make an exception." I walked over to a nearby crater "water." The crater began to fill with water "will the ground grow?" "Plants? No, the surface is rock and regulus sand, there are no nutrients. Why do you ask?" "Scrying usualy requires herbs, without them I have to do this." I raised my thumb to my mouth and bit hard enough to draw a drop of blood. I held my hand over the water filled crater and squeezed a drop onto it, as soon as it hit the surface it became as polished as a mirror. And an image appeared on the surface "scrying what exactly is that?" "its a technique taught to me by Merlin pendragon, It allows me to connect this mirror to any reflective surface, water, glass, even the lens of an eye. "Clever." The image that appeared in front of me was aqua watching as Riku beat the living snot out of a number heartless "crap... Please tell me everything hasn't gone to hell-" he gave a roar and upped his game from beating the snot out of to skull splitting and loud guttural cries, another figure came into view, a man with dark brown hair and a powerful figure , he grabbed Riku and forced him to stop attacking the long defeated heartless, he just thrashed in the mans hold though. "Riku... Damn it. I have to get back... Where is bahamut." "You can't be serious, you have the body of a nine year old." "Eight, I wouldn't have these glasses again if I was nine."how old were you?" "Twice what I am now." "Regardless bahamut is the most powerful force I have ever encountered, I am not underestimating you in any way, but bahamut is a force to be reckoned with." "Do you see that? The silver haired idiot? It's my job to take care of him. There are a bunch of other idiots there that I have to protect! I have to get back to them." "You remind me of your brother, though the harshest word in his vocabulary is fool." "I have a much more colorful vocabulary." "All the colors of the rainbow won't help you with bahamut." "You could." "I wish to remain here." "Why?" "An act of attrition." "You're a peach, fine." I picked up a rock in front of me and chucked it at him, he was so shocked by the childish act it just hit his head without him even attempting to dodge it "what in the world..." He asked as he rubbed where I had hit "that's for being a big jerk."

Wandering the ruins had finally tuckered out my younger body, my magic seemed as strong as ever but my tiny body couldn't handle the endless rough terrain. I sat catching my breath and hugged my knees to my chest "how am I supposed to help them if I'm on a rock floating in space?" Closed my eyes and tried to order everything scrambling around in my head, but opened them when I heard a noise and then something nudging my foot, I looked and saw a creature that was vaguely fox like, wearing clown like costume, it had two big eyes and a giant shining ruby in the middle, it's two ears were long and wing like, as was it's tail, it's coat was a shimmering green. It cocked it's head at me curiously "c-carbuncle!" It jumped up from all fours swirling around in the air excitedly for a second before back down "you really were trapped here... And the other eidolons?"

"You're back? What on earth have you been doing child?" I looked at the big idiot and stuck my tongue out, "I found an eidolon, to help me." Carbuncle manifested in a burst of green sparks and settled in my arms "we're going to take on bahamut." "You recruited an eidolon to fight an eidolon?" I nodded "I asked a couple others, but they all said that I couldn't summon them because I hadn't practiced their ways like I had carbuncles, but they would aid me if I managed to get to the worlds." "Were they so pleasant?" "No they tried to kill me, but carbuncle protected me." "Why do I sense that there is no highway option with you." "Why is your hair white, questions that really don't need to be answered but are just a part of our character. Where is bahamut." "The northernmost crater." "Are you going to help me?" "No." "You're just a bottle of sunshine you know that?"

I entered the cave that lead into the largest crater on the moon, I would be a liar if I said I wasn't nervous about facing the strongest eidolon of legend in my eight year old body. I reached the opening, the ring of the crater was so massive I could only just see it's edge before the starry sky, "Conqueror of the skies, Bahamut has known many names; the Dragon King, the Hallowed Father, the First Sire. He who rode down on dalamud and rained the terror of the eidolons upon the land. S-show yourself!" There was a roar and what I could only describe as a micro-sized nuclear explosion, I barely managed to summon a shield around myself in time for my face not to be melted off, when the blast of heat and light cleared I saw bahamut, floating about fifty feet in the air, he was giant, massive, easily the size of major numerus, he languidly flapped his wings once or twice every couple seconds to keep himself air born, "Hello govenor." I joked, The growl that came from the massive dragon was to say... Fear wrenching, it seemed to reverberate through the ground beneath my feet and even in my bones. "Would it be okay if I left now? Ya know is there like a door or a portal that I can just mosey on through no conflict necessary?" The dragon kings response to that was to open it's mouth, a massive blue ball of energy developed and shot at me, I raced out of the range of the attack and was lifted off my feet by the power of it's collision with where I had been standing, I rightened myself in midair by crashing through the seal of a float spell and went offensive, "blizzaga."a tiny pearl of white and blue light emitting frost appeared before me and shot towards the dragon, it hit it on the junction of neck and shoulder and exploded into a massive jagged star of ice and light definitely didn't like that and began firing off more flares, I began rapid casting, throwing everything I had at it, trios of blizzard and fire, bombarding it with magic, I didn't dare bother using any status or enfeebling magic, it wouldn't work and would make it mad, very mad, and it was already furious. "Thunder, thunder thunder!" Raining bolts of purple lightning down on it didn't seem to have much effect, I felt like the other to two spells weren't working either. "Stone!" Giant boulders lifted themselves up around me when I flicked my hand at the king of dragons, i was fairly surprised the moon rock responded to my magic, less surprised when it collided with bahamut's scales and was turned to dust. With the heat coming off bahamut I didn't think water would do anything more than provide coverage in the form of mist. "Great thank you so much for disagreeing with elemental magic, I fired off a darkga and managed to aim it well enough that it detonated in it's face but that just seemed to really piss him off because he opened his mouth and rained a beam that tore through the ground like butter, i thankfully got out of the way propelling myself with an aero, I teleported behind it, and started casting graviga over and over but delaying the casting, it wasn't fooled long though, only long enough for me to conjure a roughly thirty foot in diameter ball of darkness above him, it bore down upon him and when it realized I was trying to ground it flapped it's wings, as it did it released hundreds of tracer bursts of energy that soared and arced towards me "not good!" I ran away from them being blasted and tumbling all over the place but getting out unharmed, "you stink!" " whisperga!" The thing was playing with me it opened it's mouth and chomped down on the butterflies flaming with dark power. "Really! You suck!" I managed to trance and started popping off flares to hit him with. "How do you like that chuckles!" It obviously didn't mind heat so i didn't bother with meltdown, I waited till he opened his mouth again to attack and fired off ultima, he wavered backwards and gave a roar of pain "hah!"

And then He started charging megaflare, "great, friggin great!" The ball of energy it was gathering overhead was almost as large as it "carbuncle!" As the eidolon appeared swirling around me I summoned up a reflect of my own, that was surrounded by carbuncles shield, the most powerful reflect spell I had ever seen a magical mirror, it looked like a thin rippling emerald wall wrapped around mine, but I could feel it's strength. The blast was so powerful I felt the ground underneath me but still bubbled in my shield turn to powder; and every sense was so overloaded I couldn't open my eyes for a couple minutes, when I did I was confused and disoriented, and standing on a small island in a lake of lava, I had been shielded from everything but the light of the afraid and had even acquired a nice tan, and some slight sunburn. I looked up at bahamut and saw he had been wounded, carbuncles reflect was actually powerful enough to damage the king of dragons, he was quickly healing but obviously hadn't enjoyed it, but underneath him was something there hadn't been before, a whirlpool in the lake of lava, I cast a whisper into it using magic to see what it saw temporarily, that was the portal alright bahamut have a roar and prepared to attack again "go child! While he is weakened and busy! Come meteor!" I whirled around to see golbez floating in white hair billowing to save the day, he was casting. Meteor, pummeling the still healing king of the dragons, I took my chance and cast blizzagas at the molten lava making a route for myself to the portal "golbez!" "Run!" "I am! But listen! Thank you! And your grandfather and your other familly wouldn't want you punishing yourself! Come back when you're ready!" I ran as fast and hard as I could on my ice path dodging stray attacks between bahamut and golbez, I reached the portal and dropped on through with a last look over my shoulder at golbez. "Goodbye!" I saw him smirk and nod before everything went white.

When I opened my eyes again I still wasn't back where I belonged, I was on a white platform floating in a cloudy sky, the only things with me was a woman in Valkyrie armor with her hair pulled over her shoulder, and a giant thin silver branched tree, each branch ending in a single leaf, that seemed to extend into eternity. "W-where am I now..." The woman sighed "my name is lightning, this is Yggdrasil, con-grat-u-fucking-lations, you've fought your way to rebirth." She said sarcastically "that's Yggdrasil? The real one? The world tree?" She sighed and nodded "he's the tree that supports the life of the cosmos, each leaf representing a a unknown but finite amount of time but will still signal the end of days." "How many leaves are there?" "Trade secret." "Where is this place lightning." "You ask a lot of questions aren't you in a hurry or something?" "Sorry scientist mode..." She sighed "I know someone like that... Look, this is kingdom hearts. Or part of it anyway, the part responsible for rebirth, you made it past bahamut so you get a ticket back downstairs are you ready?" "Then who are you?" "Death." She held up her hand to stop me "next time you die I'll take care of answering all your questions, for now just get out of here." "Okay boss lady." "If you go back, you won't be exactly the same as before there will be changes, well you willingly put a dragon in your own head, you don't care do you." "I'm not the hero." "All life is valuable kid, even stupid people like you. When you get back I recommend studying up on keyblades."

Aqua-

The number was giant and disturbing, terra Riku and I had been sent to handle it, I was so happy to have terra back, it had been strange at first, he had been a mess with what he had done, now he was just being a tank, fighting full cylinders against any of the creep country club who raised their ugly heads, and then he would just come to me apologizing and hug me. Riku on the other hand terrified me, he had gone Berserk, throwing himself into training, fighting anything he could and then sleeping to recover, he was a wreck. I looked at the monster, one half of it was a mass of ruby colored tentacles and the other was a rippling ball of muscle under purple flesh with half of an extremely pissed off face. Riku was ferociously attacking it with terra fighting and doing his best to block the creatures attacks because Riku was doing plenty offensively but wasn't even attempting to defend himself, I was forced to stay back and heal him because of how reckless he was being, "Riku stop! You're going to get killed!" I summoned a barrier around him when he was about to get whipped by the tentacle arm. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" Riku was roaring it broke my heart, first we lost prosper, now sora wants to trade himself in for ventus, I wanted my friend back but did we have to lose sora?" I launched off a couple blizzagas but had to go right back to healing when suddenly the beast exploded in a blast of red light, it was so powerful it hit me and threw me against a tombstone, I hated Halloween town, I liked Christmas town a lot better. I leapt to my feet and saw Riku and terra had been hit bad, I blasted off curagas and saw the beasts red tentacle side had disappeared, it was all purple ogre monster now, I got Riku standing first and he instantly started attacking but pulled back with terra "physical attacks aren't working anymore!" I saw him blasting off dark firagas "Riku pull back I'll fight it!" Riku and terra kept back keeping up support with their fire and stone spells I dodged the giant purple fists and blasted it with mega flares and ice blasts, when it caught me, it grabbed me and held me in midair, I tried to get free but it gripped me tighter and tighter I cried out but was blinded by a flash of royal blue, when my vision cleared I saw and I saw prosper floating there magic literally pouring off of him in waves, and flapping behind him extended from his blue leather jacket, bat wings. "Thunder!" Purple bolts of lightning rained down and severed the monsters arm that was holding me, it dropped and I leapt out of it right before it hit the ground "scintilla!" He swept his arm out and burst of of blue light erupted across the number destroying it, he dropped to the ground and collected the hearts, I stood there frozen next to terra who looked at me confused "who is he?" "Prosper..." He turned and grinned waving at us "hey! Pretty cool huh!" I looked him up and down, he looked almost the same, his skin tanned like he had been at the beach for a month, his hair was wilder but cut short, his eyes had changed, even the color of his mana had changed to royal blue, he had always been lithe but now he was muscled like he had been training while he was dead, he was wearing his blue leather jacket the wings disappeared, a baggy black tank top and his stripped blue and white pants and combat boots, I stood there stunned but Riku just barreled at him and hugged him fiercely "hey! Missed you too idiot, and could you please not Break my spine anymore? And what the hell have you been doing. You think I don't know about you beating the snot out of heartless like no tomorrow?" "How are you alive?" "Right here probably isn't the best place for that cuz I don't want to have to tell the story a dozen times."

I looked at prosper, everyone was gathered together and kinda off, prosper was eying the stargazer dubiously, holding mason like always, as if he hadn't just returned from the dead "well when I was dead I didn't go up or down or anything, I went to the moon, apparently the moon has a physical plane too, where the eidolons live, there I found out I had become a sorcerer the second I learned magic, there I learned to summon the eidolons and fought my way past bahamut, a sorcerer golbez distracted the king of dragons while I escaped, I was told I could return, but I'm not a keyblade wielder or strong willed human, I didn't make a nobody, my heartless was a lowly spring metal, when my parts all got put back together I still wasn't alive so some vampire got mixed in to get my blood pumping." I demonstrated my wings sprouting and showing my canines. "It's not like I'm a full vampire, just some traits, im human+, it wasn't possible to come back otherwise... And Coming back... It's not meant for people who aren't chosen ones like you keyblade wielders, Hero's... I saw things I shouldn't have seen and there's so much knowledge I brought back buzzing around in my head it hurts, you got me?" Sora was grinning " that's cool! So you have to drink blood and stuff now?" I shook my head "I have a pulse an everything, but now I have another kind of hunger, for mana, I meet my own needs with my own mana supply, but if i fight too much I could need infusions from someone else, I'm not hurt by sunlight but I do get stronger after dark." He caught me staring at him "w-what? I did the right thing, you idiots can't get by without me. I mean, please, the collective attractiveness of this group is subpar without me." I couldn't tell if he was trying to convince us of himself? Did he think we would be afraid of him? Fear him as some kind of monster? "So where are we, who's in the country club and whats going on, jeez how long have I even been gone?" "Six months, the witch survived, but with the nobody and the heartless gone we have terra back, and are hunting them down, but they're laying low." "They're probably only attacking enough to coax you all into getting ventus back. That and xehanort needs an auspicious date, this attack when I feel like it plan isn't like him, this all has to go down at a specific time, and until then he can only provoke us" "It's too easy to forget that all of our friends together is exactly what xehanort wants." I agreed. Prosper looked at me and terra "is there no way in which we end this without getting ven back?" I shook my head and looked at terra who agreed with me "it'd be safer without him, without the seventh light we have a strong team and no chance of the xi blade besides the princesses, so the decision is remain the target and expose ourselves to a much more real danger of the battle, or give up on our friend and much more likely win, but I think without ventus we won't have a real way to finally end the creep" "We have to get ventus back." He nodded and looked at the stargazer "you can do it still?" The wizard nodded answering prospers cryptic question and prosper frowned and looked at sora "yen sid can destroy you're heart cleanly, it will resurrect ventus because his heart has no darkness, and send you straight to the world of darkness, because of my masters research and who you are you'll keep your physical form and emotions as a heartless, and if you can get your way out the same way the heartless do you'll be able to rejoin us, and fight, kairi turned you back she should be able to do it again, the lynch pin is that I can't just pop in and pull you out like aqua, you have to escape on you're own like a normal heartless." "Are there any risks?" He asked curiously but obviously not worried and prosper nodded "it's important that the stargazer 86 your heart because he can minimize the damage done to it, besides the princesses, hearts wear and tear, they aren't meant to be brought back again and again, yours could be damaged and you would never be the same, the other heartless might turn on you and you won't make it out of the realm of darkness, and then there is the nobody..." "The could remake roxas?" Lea asked shocked and I shook my head "roxas is sora, the phenomenon of roxas was because sora is special, his body kept his emotions the same as his heart, roxas was always sora just sora without a heart, so no, it would be a new nobody, because if he keeps his heart and mind together this time it won't make roxas, or even a nobody with emotions like roxas, it'll make a brand new nobody, maybe one identical to roxas in appearance, but as you can see there's no trend to the appearance of a nobody, some look identical like Terra's, others don't, we could lose him, we would have to find him, and he Would need to be there with sora when kairi restores him, otherwise we'll have to make namine again to put humpty dumpty back together again. The good news is that now that I've ya know..." I drew my finger across my throat "I've got a much better idea of how it works, so I can help sora a lot better if our plan is still to revive ventus." They looked surprised "really?" I nodded and picked up mason "I can give you a personal body guard, you won't have your keyblade, and you've never been the best at magic mason will protect you." Terra looked confused, he walked up to me and dropped his hand on my head "come on bud, I know you just came back to life but get them big brains aqua told me about in motion, a shadow won't be much of a bodyguard." I pouted up at the tallest keyblade wielder "I know that! Which is why we have to make some adjustments."

We all stood in the courtyard of radiant garden, the restoration committee included, everyone was pitching in "make them precise! I don't wanna blow up my friend!" I called out as I worked on the innermost circle of the array. Everyone was using chalk to help draw parts of the largest array I had ever seen, Riku was grumbling about how he always got saddled with this job, terra was complaining about why I couldn't draw the matrix with magic and lea was faking "I see that lea! And I can't use magic to draw the array because the magic for the spell to draw it would tamper with the magic of the spell the array is meant to amplify. Tina giggled as she corrected some of soars work, now that I was done with the center I made my way around the massive magic array checking that nothing was wrong, "sora what made you thin you could sign your name!" He got swatted at by both terra and Riku and I just laughed and erased it with my foot, I picked up mason and shook him a bit "you're sure you're okay with this? I don't think it's ever been done since the creep made the number heartless." "I want to help, and being two feet tall is incredibly frustrating." I nodded and hugged him before setting him at the center of the array, "okay, anybody who doesn't want to get deep fried get off the array." I headed to the edge where the activation sigils were and looked over to aqua "be ready to shield them if it goes sour!" Aqua nodded and tifa laughed "that almost sounded like doubt!" "Don't mock me booby lady!" I cleared my throat and took a deep breath, I started chanting in a lost language, I recognized some of the eldritch sounding words as parts of incantations of much more basic spells, growth, strength, power, the chant went on for nearly four minutes before the array started to glow, and then clouds of darkness began rising off the lines of chalk like smoke, swirling and obscuring everything "transform! Take the shape I have chosen for you!" The black clouds coalesced into a swirling vortex of darkness around mason, a wicked wind picking up, blowing away the chalk and leaving black burns in their wake. I heard Riku call out to me over the roar " you had better not fall into darkness or I'll kick your ass!" Aerith looked terrified "is that a possibility!" "Very very minor one!" I readied the second wave of the spell, "I have given you shape! Now take form and be reborn! This shall be done until I have made it undone!" The pitch black tornados rose up higher and higher into the air and swelled outwards until it was only feet from me "my strength shall be your strength! And until it can share no more with you, you will defend the keyblade wielder sora! This will be your forms purpose! I am your new creator and I decorate you good!" Bolts of neon blue lightning rained down, ripping through the tornado and there was a sudden burst as the darkness flew outwards in all directions temporarily blinding us. Before everything cleared, the night sky above us was suddenly full of clouds and it was all coming down in a downpour, the rain was almost so heavy that it hurt. I looked towards the center of the array and was glad when I saw nothing, I was exhausted, I walked over to sora and kicked his foot they had all taken cover inside the atrium of the castle "ow what was that for?" "Shush, mason how you doing little guy?" From beneath sora there was a groan that was easily identified as masons, "like you look." I chuckled "do you think you have the strength to come out and show everyone?" The was a groan and then the response was from where soars shadow would be rose a guardian heartless, it had masons heady yellow eyes, and instead of being black was Snow White, with yellow accents and no bandage chains like creeper-Nort's. There were gasps all around but sora thought it was awesome "that is so cool!" I chuckled and nodded, mason dissolved back I got he found beneath sora "he's really week, he needs rest so no bullying in okay sora?" The chosen one nodded and I sighed before raising my hand to my fire head and pressing both side of my hand " jeez, I'm hot, and tired, can I go home now?" Aqua attacked me and started mothering me. "You are warm, do you think you used too much magic? That was a big spell." I shrugged feeling nothing when I was blasted by aerith kairi and aqua with a curaga, regs and esuna respectively. I frowned at th but my brain started working again "oh yeah. Vampire." I grabbed Riku and bit him on the forearm. The contact lasted less than a second but I felt a tiny drain in his magic and suddenly I felt much better and got a lot of my magic back "ow!" "Don't be a baby, I barely broke the skin with just the top two teeth." I inspected his arm, there were barely two little drops of blood bedding up on his arm, I licked them and he recoiled and shuddered "That was so weird!" I just shrugged terra laughed at me "what does it taste like?" "Like blood, coppery, but his magic tastes different." "You can taste his mana?" I nodded "tastes like dark chocolate, was actually pretty tasty." At that sora got excited "what does my magic taste like!" He held out his finger to me and I bit the tip gently "ow." "Tastes like cotton candy." I didn't mind everyone suddenly wanting to know what their magic tasted like, I didn't like the taste of blood but the magic I got from them made me feel better. "So who's taste best?" I scratched the back of my head "I don't know, I mean they all taste good! Um... Leon's maybe? It tasted like pink cotton candy, sodas tasted like blue." The gun blade users face turned bright red aerith tried her best to calm him down though "now now, this could all be biased cotton candy is pure sugar and you know prospers sweet tooth." Rinoa jumped on Leon's back giggling "besides I love that your so sweet, sugar." He got more and more indignant and I couldn't help but laugh, but I was tired, I just wanted to go to sleep, go home, hell I just wanted to be someplace quiet? Why? I really liked these people, they were my friends, why was I forcing a smile? "Hey you okay?" Terra eyed me dubiously for a minute "yeah, I'm fine." "You don't look fine, you look worn thin." "I'm sorry, being fabulous and amazing and-" "you talk pretty big but you're tired, it's okay, you don't have to spare our feelings ya know?" I looked at him surprised as he clapped a giant hand down on top of my head and ruffled my soaking wet hair "you... You... You stupid big jerk yes I'm tired," I rubbed at my eyes "everything hurts, my head is spinning, I'm confused because I'm two inches taller than I was and everything is different from higher up, up I have abs! And they hurt! I never had abs! Why do I have abs!" He laughed at me "I'll cover for you if anyone asks, go, get some sleep."

When I woke up I was lonely, I was used to waking up with mason and his adorable little heartless snores, I slunk oh of the bed in the dorms of the castle, all alone, I looked out the window and saw it still pouring rain, I groaned "stupid massive transmutation spell, I hate rain." I was in just shorts and the same tank top I walked towards the castle kitchen and grabbed myself an apple before walking into the library to find every there and being very quiet. Despite still feeling like I had been hit by a ton of bricks I made an attle of at humor "guess, you guys are still mourning me after six months, I was so loved. Riku glared at me and pointed to a blonde kid who looked about sora's age who was talking to aqua "who's he?" "Ventus." I choked on my apple "what! Where's sora?" Kairi looked furious and her eyes were red from crying. "He left in the middle of the night and went to yen sid."

The next couple days were quiet, a small part of me was worried I had pulled an Elsa and set off an endless rainstorm, but most of me was worried about my friends, kairi was silent, waifing around like a ghost, Riku was depressed, the restoration committee was trying to stay out of it because they had no idea to be grieving sora or welcoming ventus. Terra and aqua had the same problem, they were so happy to have their friend back but I could tell they didn't want to pour salt all over Riku and kairi's open wounds. Lea had tried to get to know ven but he was hurting, I could tell, he was so much like roxas but not. All of this meant that I stuck out like a soar thumb with hang nails bandages and blood squirting out all over the place. Finally I couldn't stand it any more... I went up to the tower where Riku had been spending most of his time sulking and watching the rain. "Hey." He grunted in acknowledgement of me, I offered him a stick of my dango but he mad no move to take it the sweet candy colored dumplings turned black and to dust before I flicked the stick out the window he was currently staring out of, siting on the windowsill, "I made those because I thought you could use some cheering up, but then again you haven't been eating either. "So." "So you need to keep your strength up, you don't want sora to come back and be stronger than you do you?" He made disproving noise at the back if his throat and I sighed "I'm sorry about the rain, i think i threw the atmosphere out of balance for a little bit with that big spell, it should pass soon enough." "Hmm." "You think it's going to flood? That'd be something right, the dark depths turning into a lake?" "What's it matter, this world is just gonna get razed anyway." "Don't talk like that, you promised me you'd defend it right?" "People lie, hell, I feel like every word out of your mouth is a lie 'we'll win' 'it's okay' 'I don't like you' you're so full of it, and it's not fair that a revenge obsessed little brat like you gets a second chance and sora has to keep sacrificing himself." I snapped, I pushed him out the window, it's not like it mattered, there was a terrace fifteen feet below I leapt out after him he landed and summoned his key, I spun in air and landed a kick right to his face, he slid back on the rain slicked terrace "you asshole! What more do you want from me! I've given everything! My master!" I fired of a thundaga that he narrowly managed to avoid "my home!" A firaga that he deflected with a dark firaga of his own "my life!" I cast blizzagas from either side of me, he cleaved through one but was hit by the second, he went offensive and rushed me delivering a painful chain of blows to my chest, I retaliated with stone spells and kept yelling at him "I'm not a hero! I'm not one of you bastards! I was never the chosen one! I didn't want to be! That's why you and me are different! I never asked for all of this! I didn't plunge my world I to darkness like you!" I blocked his blow with one of my wings then flapping both to blow him off "I came back to life for you! I was free! I didn't have to worry about xehanort! Or tip toeing around you people anymore! I could be with my master! With my parents! And I came back! I became a monster just to help you! People are meant to stay dead! I didn't want to die!" "Then you should have stayed dead! We don't need you! All you've ever been is a necessary evil! Because you were the one who could get me sora and kairi home! To make things normal again!" He moved faster than I could possibly have reacted to, we had been trading blows and I had knocked him back again and was suddenly rushed at, road to dawn was buried in my side and sticking out my back next to my spine our faces inches apart I cough up a copious amount of blood and made a good show of spitting some in his face, "you poor bastard, you hate me because you can't bring yourself to hate any of them, all you've ever seen in me is yourself, you're the one who wants a second chance, well this one is mine! So go ahead and try to kill me bastard! I won't go down as easy!" His eyes had gone pitch black and wisps of darkness were pouring off him, but he suddenly stiffened, his vision clearing and the darkness fading, despite the rain I could see the tears boiling up in his eyes "prosper... I-I-I'm sorry..." His eyes went down to wear I was impaled, "w-what have I done...p-prosper I'm sorry!" "for what? I'm a monster! And you're a failure! All you've ever done is cause people pain! And fail! I hate you!" My wings sprouted from my black flapping violently as my head shot forward and I sank my fangs into rikus throat, I taste the metallic burn of his blood pouring down my throat before I pulled back "ultima!" The all consuming blast of magic erupted between us and swallowed us both.

I fingered the quickly fading scar on my stomach from where Riku had stabbed me, after blasting us with the ultima I had healed us both and spent the next minute or so screaming at his semi conscious form before teleporting away, I had gone home first, and I sat there crying, this was ridiculous, Riku only said those things because he's hurting without sora, but what I did was horrible, I acted like a brat, those were just words, when did I become so weak and stupid! "I... Can't stay here... Aqua will come after me. I'm just not ready to see them again..." "Damn it..."

I teleported from work to world, visiting my friends, avoiding the key blade wielders and killing and collecting heartless. And then it happened. I was using the bifrost to travel to another world and I literally felt myself be jerked in the wrong direction during the transportation. I landed and found myself in the land of departures nightmare form of castle oblivion. "This is not wonderland..." "Prosper!" I heard someone calling my name like they were looking for me, I tried teleporting but was ground locked, without a choice I ran towards the castle and ducked behind a pillar just as Tina and ventus came past calling my name "aqua said she had grounded him so where is he?" "I don't know, maybe he's hiding?" I heard ven laugh before yelling "Marco." I didn't respond of course, damn, they got the stargazer to send me here and she's the master of this world, she can control who leaves. The two blondes moved on and I ran down an opposite corridor and heard voices calling for me again, I kept running from the voices calling my name and searching for me and then I came to a large set of double doors, with no choice I ran in and closed them as fast as I could behind me hearing someone looking for me get too close. I turned prepared to keep running till I found a ley line tha I could use to escape the world, but when I turned around and saw something impossible, I was home, in gaia's rest, it was two and a half years ago though, and I saw ansem talking to me right infront of my own eyes. There is as, me, that one was fourteen and I was almost seventeen, ansem was standing over and behind me as I studied. "What the hell am I seeing." I walked in closer, I could hear ansem talking to me now, "your studies are important so, before my next visit I expect you to have mastered the tier two elemental spells, and I want you to know how proud of you i am." Damn it I remembered this! "Stop! Don't! Don't! I can help!" They couldn't hear me, or see me it was just an illusion, I knew that, but it didnt stop me from crying and screaming as I watched my master lay his hand on my forehead and cast a spell that put me to sleep "stop! I wasn't strong enough then but I am now! I can help!theres a logical answer to all of this! Blowing yourself up won't do anything please!" I was crying so much I could barely see him pick up my slack body and gently lower me into one of the library pools. He turned and froze in place, I hadn't even realized it but my magic was going on of control, my aura burning around me, tier 3 spells blasting off in all directions, before flares and ultimas did too "please! Wake me back up don't go!" I felt someone tackle me and pull me into their chest, "prosper! Stop it's okay! It's just a memory!" I just cried into their chest I didn't even know who it was, finally I had blown through my magic supply and blue sparks were collapsing off me uselessly I finally pulled back sniveling and saw who was holding me "r-Riku?" "I'm so sorry prosper, about the things I said, the things i did-" "your-your sorry?! I attacked you! All you did was hurt my feelings and I attacked you." "I stabbed you, and I said those lies, you aren't just some thing we're using to get things back to the way they belong, you're one of us! I can't do this without you, so please come back, please..." "I hate you stupid keybladers so much, I'm so sick of these emotional roller coaster rides." He laughed at me, chuckling lowly "we should get you a dog collar, you're our Mage." I was surprised when he kissed my forehead, "come on, everyone's looking for you." "Hey! Stop that you're not my mother!" He chucked and pulled away and was pulling me along but I couldn't move "what's the matter? They aren't mad at you, they're worried." "It's not that... I literally can't move... I used up all my energy with that tantrum." He laughed and picked me up bridal style "this is pay back for the ultima isn't it?" "You could call it that."

"I want to die." "No you don't you're being a drama queen." I glared at kairi but just sighed "I acted like a little kid." "Maybe, but so were we, we owe you, you snapped us out of our funk." "That's good, I mean, It was horrible watching you guys worry about sora like that..." "See, as much as you're horrible at expressing your emotions, it's easy to tell you care." She kissed my cheek and I shuddered "would people stop doing that!" "What?" "Kissing me and stuff! I am not good at social and romantic interaction!" She laughed and I buried my face in my knees "so, out of curiosity, who do you think I like better, sora or Riku?" "I don't even know anymore, Riku?" She smiled at me "I dunno, I think he's got a crush on someone else." "Then sora?" "I don't know, he's not very good with magic." "T-that's a factor?" She smiled at me "I suppose it is. To tell the truth I don't know who I like anymore either, but I don't think its as simple as sora and Riku anymore." "Eheh... Um... I think I should go feed mason." "He's with sora remember?" "Oh um right..." She smiled at me. And stood "eat your food, and don't work yourself too hard okay." This whole thing had started by her coming down to the lab and give me something to eat.

I ended up working through the night and then all of the next day, trying to burn off some embarrassment, I surfaced the next day though and was surrounded by affection, Tina and ven hugged me, aqua kissed my cheek, Riku offered for me to drink some of his blood, I was wondering what the hell was up when I was

suddenly hugged by terra who actually said "physical contact and support." "Wait what! Is that what this is! You people think I'm depressed or something!" I pulled back from him furious "prosper..."

48 hours earlier-Riku-

"So we bring him back and he buries himself in his lab for two days straight," "that's not even part." I said, "I went down to his lab, to bring him food and make sure he hadn't killed himself, and it's a night are in there, all the walls are covered in formulas and stuff, there was a stack of fresh paper there only a couple sheets even written on,he's gone totally beautiful mind on us, he hasn't slept the entire time he's been back, and hasn't eaten either, he was gone for two weeks I'm seriously worried!" Everyone looked at me surprised, and I felt my face heat up in embarrassment. Kairi nodded and turned to leave "I won't let that idiot do this to himself, what is it with all of you boys and sacrificing yourself!" Aqua stopped her though "I know how you feel kairi, but we can't just tackle this like an enemy head on, there are his feelings to consider, like his pride." "So what'll we do? Because I can't watch the people I care about hurt themselves anymore." She rubbed at her eyes and I could tell she was fighting back tears. "We'll be here for him, we'll take care of him however we can."

Prosper-

"An intervention! Are you kidding me! I'm not crazy!" Riku checked my chains again "are you serious!" I looked from Riku, to kairi to aqua, the three keyblade masters had chained me up in the throne room, "you're the crazy ones! I should be working right now. Not chained up!" They stepped back and shared a look "prosper you're killing yourself this is insane..." "You haven'ty eaten anything, you didn't even eat your own dango." Riku said "You haven't slept since sora left." Kairi said"You've been working yourself day and night." Aqua said. "I totally have." Kairi got angry at that "you're acting like a bonehead like us! You're human! You aren't atlas share some of the weight with us okay." "You trust us don't you?" I bit my tongue "yes I trust you! All of you, it's just that I trust-" "yourself more." Riku nodded and kairi opened the door, and Tina and ven came in pushing a cart stacked high with sweats and fruit, even a pot of something "what's all that..." "We're going to make you fat! You'll be even cuter!" Tina giggled, I was afraid I couldn't tell if she was serious or not. Kairi came up to the cart and poured a bowl of steaming soup, "wait..." She came up to me and kneeled infront of me, I tried to look everywhere but at her but then I found everyone else's eyes on me "please, just eat, for me?" She offered me a spoonful but I couldn't "kairi wait I can't.." I heard Riku growl and grab my head and force my mouth open for her to spoon feed me before pinching my nose and forcing me to swallow. I sputtered but finally did "why are you making this so hard in us, we just want to take care of you..." "Ever think I don't want to be taken care of? That I just want to take care of all of you, protect you!" "That's how it works, that's how we'll win, because we'll protect each other." I sighed and nodded "fine... But seriously unchain me now." They shook their head no, and I fought against them trying to feed me "why! It's just food! You like food come on!" "S-stop! Alright! I can't eat human food..." They looked at me surprised "what do you mean..." "I mean that the spoon of soup you fed me is burning a hole in my stomach..." "What? Youre kidding. What's going on?" I couldn't meet any of their eyes so I just stared at the cieling, "I... Since I attacked Riku... I haven't been able to eat." "Are you serious? How could you just not mention something like this!" "Because I think it will still go away! Maybe your blood just hadn't worked it's way out of my system yet!" Maybe it won't be permanent "Riku ran his hands through his hair frustrated "and I asked you to drink my blood earlier..." "I didn't want to make you feel worse by saying no..." He grabbed me at that "you idiot! This is your life! You can't seriously think saving my feelings was worth risking that!" I didn't respond "everything is working differently too..." I spoke lowly, I looked at kairi and cocked my neck towards her "feel." I closed my eyes as I felt her small cool fingers settle on my neck where she should feel my pulse, she kept her hand there for almost a minute before I felt her hands roam all around my neck, before I heard her gasp as she felt it, one powerful ba-dump "was that it!" "One or two beats per minute... If my math is right... Twenty four hours for me will take thirty seven and a half days."god damn it... Is that why you haven't been sleeping either?" I looked at kairi surprised and decided lying would definitely be better. "Yeah, it's just not night time for me yet." Riku slapped me, the noise making the entire room painfully silent "prosper if you lie to us one more time I'll kill you, tell us!" "I'm sorry..." Kairi was crying and I wanted nothing more than to comfort her, I ever tried to move but the chains kept me from it. "I... Those first few nights I was so exhausted I slept like the dead... But since then... All I can dream about is... Coming back, and the things I saw when she was bringing me back... It's horrible... It's so horrible I wake up so terrified I've burned down the rooms I tried to sleep in or caused earthquakes in my sleep..." Kairi suddenly leapt into action summoning her keyblade and slashing the magic binding chains in one clean cut, she threw herself at me hugging me and sobbing "you idiot! Would you please just let us help you from now on! We'll get you fixed okay? I promise." I hugged her back and looked at Riku then at aqua "you'll be in good hands with these two."

" Aerith giggled "looks like someones gotten very popular." I felt the blush that hadn't left since Yuffie had chimed in excitedly "it's pretty adorable, the brave knight and the beautiful princes both falling in love with the wizard. It's like one of rinoa's romance novels! Which will the wizard chose?" Grow hotter. Cid just sighed disapprovingly at the ninja, while cloud just chuckled. "It not like that! They're friends!" I took a lick of my ice cream tiredly but then everything changed, a single black feather drifted down in front of us and cloud suddenly leapt up and ran off. "Cloud!" "Where's he going?" Tifa and aerith shot to their feet running after them, I looked at the pilot and ninja for help and they just nodded and we started running.

We all reached the dark depths just a minute after cloud and saw a man with long silver hair, a black coat and a katana on steroids "sephiroth." "Perfect, the witch's spell worked, I've been sent to eliminate those who are not among the seven lights, I requested those from my home world, and here you all are, and the little Mage too." Everything felt bad, it wasn't just darkness radiating off of him, it was power and confidence, an absolute certainty that he could handle all six of us. Cloud drew the buster sword, signaling everyone else to draw their weapons, "xehanort wants us all dead so that we can't keep helping the keyblade wielders." I began blasting off buffing spells just before he swept his sword at us, "scintilla." The bursts of millions of slashes of light coming at us were absorbed by my barriers, "good job prosper!" "Hey sephiroth! Your not the only one who knows that spell!" I returned the favor, it may not have been as strong but I hoped I would hurt, nope. He just teleported. "Great." "Down!" I Was tackled by tifa just before I would have been beheaded by the one winged angel, I couldn't use an absolute defense spell because we can't kill him at the same time as him not being able to kill us. I watched as he knocked cloud back and yuffie rushed in, her shuriken flying around her like an extension of her body, she attempted to back and cleave at him but couldn't land a hit before he threw her away with his wing. "Tifa!" I saw aerith cast fury brand to allow tifa to use her final heaven, she landed a solid punch on sephiroth that exploded in a massive burst of blue fire, I took aerith's cue and blasted cloud with aura spells, they couldn't do the miracles aerith spell could, but they would get him most of the way there, omnislash!" He flew towards sephiroth but was interrupted by an octaslash

I collapsed to me knees for just one second panting, the battle had been going on for nearly a half an hour and I could barely move, four powerful attackers and me and aerith healing and buffing and we still weren't strong enough to damage him, he was playing with us "descend heartless angel." Damn it he was doing It again! "Carbuncle! Bless us with benediction!" Just as his halo completed and was going to reduce us to critical condition carbuncle manifested flying above me and released an all consuming burst of pearly light that healed us back to full health, "cid! Do it now!" The pilot had super jumped with the help of a dozen float spells from me he was about a mile above us and should be casting graviga rich about now. He rode down on his spear so fast it should have been impossible to even register but sephiroth batted him away like a flie, the ground shattering beneath his feet as did was thrown against the rock wall of the canyon "cid!" I shot cure spells to him until I was interrupted by sensing the biggest power surge from sephiroth yet "supernova!" Yuffie yelled, aerith used some of her magic to restore some of mine "carbuncle! Ruby light!" The strain from summoning the eidolon so many times in a row had evolved from a stressed feeling to a massive pain at the back of my skull, carbuncles shield encased us just as his seemingly endless barrage of darkness and meteors would have killed us. Everything that happened next was a blur, I rember blood, and dying, watching my friends die, it was horrible, and then I snapped, I remember more magic than I had thought possible to use exploding out of me.

I shot up crying and screaming, "aerith!" I wiped at my eyes and looked around, I was on gaia's rest, in my own bed, sitting in a chair next to the bed was kairi and sitting at the foot of the bed his torso and arms on the it was Riku, both sound asleep "damn it... What happened... That can't have been real..." They started waking up "prosper! Your awake!" "Where are they are they alright please! Are they alive!" Riku grabbed me "yes! Calm down, everyone okay, cloud says sephiroth attack and things went bad, but you turned them around, you've been passed out ever since!" "T-they're okay... Thank god..." They looked at me terrified "you need to eat... Cure spells can only do so much..." "How have I been out? Why are we on gaia's rest?" Their eyes fell to their feet... "It's been four days..." Riku caught my chin "prosper... Listen to me, none of this is your fault. You did your best, however you did it..." "Riku... What happened?" "Yes sid said the magnitude of the spell was incredible... you took everyone in the castle, the entire restoration committee, the fairies, even a backed up copy of tron... And teleported them here... When radiant garden was destroyed..."

"There were a four hundred and fifteen people in radiant garden... Four hundred and fifteen people I could have saved... That I should have saved... How was the entire world destroyed! All I remember is everyone getting k- hurt... When we were fighting sephiroth... And then some kind of spell..." Aqua looked at me with tears in her eyes "they showed up at the castle... Four of them... Two women and two men, they attacked us, and one of the women, she went to the worlds keyhole, and she destroyed the heart of the world... You saved us." "What were their names aqua." "i don't know about the one who destroyed the world, but the other three... She called them doga, unei, and xande."

I was studying, trying to make sense of it all. There was just too much culture, and too much history to try and put together, there were common threads everywhere, but the quilt they seemed to all be tied up in must have been big enough to wrap around Disney town a dozen times over. But the most common of them was the story kairi had repeated to me from her grandmother, there was the one light, people fought over it with keyblades, darkness took over and the light in hearts of children brought light back into to the world. The big questions were just how well did that story match up with the first keyblade war? Where did key blades come from? Who set up these freaking systems! The only answer I found was a dubious account of the first war. Supposedly a scientist, Amon, created the keyblades so that the three disciples of Noah, doga unei and xande, could fight over the first magic, the light I suppose. What did that make Noah then? There had to be a reason for all of this. But if the people of the myth had existed they were long dead, so how could they be involved with xehanort?

Riku-

"Just when we thought things would turn around..." Kairi and I kept watching prosper, he had dozens of spell books floating in the air around him, he was writing furiously, the floor around him carpeted with hundreds of notes. Since he had woken up he was doing nothing but research on the me where of the creepernort country club who had destroyed radiant garden, no eating, no sleeping, barely any talking. I laid in my bed trying to sleep, though my thoughts were still on prosper, killing himself again. Kairi was pressed up to my side, fast asleep with her head resting on my chest, i was desperate for sleep to claim me. That's when I noticed the ceaseless scribbling of prosper working on whatever he was on the floor above us had stopped, and a weight settled itself at the end of the bed. I hefted my head and looked to see prosper crawling up the bed "prop?" His blue eyes were on fire, almost blindingly bright, the blue still seemed so foreign, would the green ever come back? "Riku... I'm going to do something... Something that really bad... But I need you to trust me... And when it's all over you'll forgive me?" He looked at me, begging more than asking "prop there isn't anything you could do that would make me hate you, kairi either, what are you going to do?" "Something horrible." Was all he said, he leaned down and hugged me tightly "thank you... For being my friend." "Prosper-" "Sleep." I wanted to stop him to force him to tell him more, but the spell hit me like a sac of bricks and I fell fast asleep.

When I woke up I wasn't on gaia's rest, kairi was still curled up against me, though now we were on the floor in yen sid's tower, I carefully got up without disturbing her and headed to the top of the tower seeking answers, I found the door open a crack and yelling coming from inside "that idiot! How could he do this! This is beyond insane!" "Terra! Stop and let's figure this out, what is it prosper is doing? How is he doing is yen sid?" "He's doing what he set out to do originally, collecting hearts." "The stars are blinking out of existence! How can you make it seem so calm!" "It's like the heartless invasion all over again." That was the kings voice "except that instead of the little bastards it's our own personal PTSD wizard!" I pushed the door open at that "what the hell is happening?" "Your little warlock has gone ballistic." I looked at yen sid for answers "the stars are blinking out one by one, the worlds, he is playing a very dangerous game." "What is he doing!" "He's collecting the hearts of everyone, and then the worlds themselves. He so far has only spared the keyblade wielders, not even Tina , he has collected the hearts of over a dozen worlds already." Is that even possible! What about the restoration committee?" He shook his head gravely "the same way that one of the thirteen was able to destroy radiant garden, he is unlocking the hearts of worlds themselves and swallowing them, he has learned to use the knowledge he brought back from rebirth." "Why is he doings this!" Terra practically yelled, I heard a meek voice behind me in the door answer that "he's clearing the battlefield... So nobody else can get hurt... No collateral damage." I turned and saw kairi awake, the silence in the room told me she was dead on. I looked at the stargazer and he nodded "his master attempted to quantify kingdom hearts and was destroyed, he developed his pendant to store hearts in a pocket dimension only accessible to him, it is likely that he believes he will be able to store every heart and then restore them once the war had been won." "Likely? Is there another possibility?" The wizard nodded "he is a scientist, a rational thinker, it may well be, that he believes the war is escalating too quickly and that should we even succeed in defeating xehanort that the universe will be so horribly scarred that euthanasia is the kinder option." "No, he wouldn't do that he couldn't!" Kairi grabbed my hand and I nodded in agreement "I believe you are correct, the fact that he has left you, the six lights suggests he hopes that he will be able to restore the worlds once the fighting is over." "Why would he do this though, we just got him back and he promised he would trust us." Kairi squeezed my hand "maybe he is, he's trusting us that we'll win." Aqua nodded and directed a question at the stargazer "do you have any idea what would have pushed him to do this so suddenly?" He mulled it over "I believe, the appearance of the cloud of darkness is what triggered it, he has memorized apocalyptic calendars from every culture in order to recognize signs of the auspicious day that xehanort needs, it's presence may have alerted him." "What are we supposed to do then?" "We will have to take the offensive while we still can, before sora can return, the exact circumstances of the x-blade's creation are unknown, but we know the seven and thirteen coming together is an absolute, whether prosper is doing it to defend the worlds or to spare them from the war, he has given us the opportunity to strike while he cannot take revenge on the innocents."

"I'm sorry... It's just for a little while I swear." I teleported from the void left behind in the planets absence and landed on the world that never was, I wasn't here to save anyone, the nobody stronghold was long since abandoned, the sheer number of hearts I carried had every dusk on a mile coming at me, I knocked them away as I made my way into the castle, I burned down rooms I finished checking and finally made my way into the deepest part of the keep, and found exactly what I was looking for, files on the old organization 13, I found 'Axel's' file and found what I needed "creeper you had better watch your back, because I'm coming."

World after world, I put everyone to sleep before I stored the heart of the world, which took everyone's hearts with it, I tried not to think about what I was actually doing, putting people to sleep and capturing their hearts, rapunzel, Elsa, howl... I just kept sobbing, so my only option was to keep going, play through the pain. I didn't have too many worlds to go, I had sensed xehanort had someone hunting me but he was thinking like the schemer he was, thinking I would pick the next world by proximity or some kind of order of importance, it didn't matter any more, there were so few worlds left, and I was much better at finding keyholes than whoever was chasing me, we had been on the same world once, I had found the keyhole almost instantly and they had to run away or risk being captured. "Just a few more I promise, then it'll be over..."

Riku-

"They're all gone, the only two worlds left were either tower and the keyblade graveyard." We made ourselves as ready as we could, out last chance was now, we had to take out xehanort before sora got back, we were out of time. I looked at kairi, she was wearing a suit of armor similar to aqua's, though instead of silver here hair a rusty red coloring, mine was like Terra's but the a dark steel coloring, Mickey was in his combat attire and the first trio were in their armor, lea was in his organization coat. "When you reach the world I have no doubts prosper will be waiting, as will the seekers, the game is over, he will come claim my heart and the heart of the tower and the final battle will begin." I squeezed kairi's hand reassuringly and summoned my keyblade, "are you ready?" "Yes."

We landed in the desolate land and made our way towards where the 'final' battle had taken place before and found a throne made of abandoned keyblades sitting empty, a second later there was a flash of blue, and prosper appeared sitting in the throne, a tired smile on his face "about time, this tea parties long past due." I wanted to run up and punch him but he stood and sighed "prosper! Where are they, as terra spoke pillars of earth rose up behind prosper, standing atop them twelve seekers, "why are they just waiting here?" "Because I'm holding us all hostage." Prosper answered, before our eyes magic circles and sigils drew themselves across his skin and across the entire surface of the world before fading "I have bonded myself to the keyblade graveyard, this is the last world in the entire cosmos, if I chose to destroy it everything will die, all of you, and all of them. I may not think of you as the smartest bunch but I trust that you know math, you can't win in a head on fight, because he doesn't have a choice xehanort has agreed to my terms. Everyone will of the lights will fight one dark." "Prosper..." I heard from kairi, "Lea stared the obvious "those numbers still don't work." He nodded and drew a keyblade from the throne "enough sleeping, wake up." He threw the blade at terra and there was a flash of light as master eraqus appeared in full armor. "No tear filled sappy reunions, he's been on you all along terra. Everyone will be put in a warded zone, the seven of you against seven of them." "What about the other five? And where is the last one!" "He's with sora, lea, you and I have to take on more than two, are you ready for this?" The redhead grinned "I was born ready! Got I memorized!" Prosper chuckled "he's confident you'll all lose, and I'm confident you'll all win, so don't let me down okay?" "Prosper!" He stomped his foot and there was a flash of light from underneath us.

Terra-

When I could see again I saw is a with his dead stair trained on me, we were standing at shot out distance in what could have been any part of the graveyard, he summoned his claymore and snarled at me "are you even human anymore?" There wasn't a response, he just surged at me, small blue flames lighting around him, he have a massive verticals swing that it couldn't have parried, but was plenty fast enough to move out of the way and hit him a couple times in the back as he destroyed the ground in that massive earth shattering attack. He really was an animal, a berserker, no defense, just relentless offense, I worked my way around his massive swings and shockwave attacks. I charged my blade with an ars solum and delivered a devastating chain of strikes to his back, his berserk attacking was hyped up more when he gave an animalistic roar and his eyes started burning with fire.

I leaned heavily on my key as I caught my breath, the berserker had been doing what he does best, his speed and fury made him dangerous and he had landed more than one his on me, but his absolute lack of defense meant I had hurt him much more. He was weak now, dragging his claymore behind him as he surged towards me one more good hit, I could end this... "Sacrifice!" I felt some of my health be drained as I unleashed the powerful slashing attack just as he reached me, I felt the attack land and there was a flash of light and darkness before everything went numb.

Aqua-

Braig stood across from me a smirk on his face "perfect. Glad we finally get to settle this one doll face, the chi blade should be just as powerful if I shoot out those pretty blues." He teleported but I was ready, he was predictable enough though, I spun and defended his attack from directly behind me. The magic bolt shattering against rainfall. I cartwheeled out of the way of more of his attacks and laid down mines as I moved, my plan was working, he was very careful about coming too close to the seeker mines, restricting his teleportation. Just as he was about to wrap again so did I he was upside down in midair looking for me, not knowing I was above him about to descend in a magic hour attack. I reached him and rode him down to the ground in the pillar of powerful light magic, we crashed into the ground and I back flipped up Into the air and teleported again just as he was teleporting away, I slowed my wrap until he had reappeared and repeated the process hitting him a second time, unfortunately he wasn't an idiot and I wouldn't win this fight through repeating the same technique, the third time he was prepared and knew exactly when to dodge. He was so Intent on getting out of the way of the magic hour he went straight into a row of my mines. I refused to give him even a second to breath, I landed and spun drawing all of my fire into the tip of my keyblade and unleashing it in one perfect blast, "megaflare!" The fiery explosion swelled outward around my swallowing up everything in sight. When it had passed I turned and saw he was smoking and obviously hurt but had a row of bolts aimed at me, I shot towards him with barrier surge the shots shattering off of the barrier just before I crashed into him. I destroyed the barrier and activated blade-charge, swinging to cleave him in half, and just as I was there was a flash of blinding light and I felt like I was caught in maple syrup.

Kairi-

I knew one thing. I hated this witch. She was the one who got prosper killed, she had to go down. I took up a fighting stance my keyblade ready. She was ignoring me, playing with a ruffle in her robe, "why did the little mate bother pairing me with you? From what I can tell nobody has high hopes for a princess. Have you even been trained?" Instead of smack talking her back I raised my key and launched a firaga. She laughed loudly before flicking her hand and putting out the large ball of flame with an icy gust "oh please, you may be much more powerful with your magic than you're little Mage, but his technique with the craft was centuries beyond yours. And millennia behind mine." She was still talking to herself when I appeared at her side and landed two strong hits to her with my key before she suddenly dashed away "what in the world!" I grinned at catching her by surprise, prosper had taught me the technique, i wasn't good enough at magic to teleport well, but leaving an after image and slowly teleporting next to her, I could handle. "Water!" Blue light veiled the tip of my key as I ran at her to keep up my attack. Blades and axes made of magic appeared in the air around her and shot towards me, I finally activated my water spell and slashed at the air in front of me, a shimmering wave of water erupted from the line of light my keyblade had drawn, the wall of water caught her blades and swept them out of my way, I kept running through the wall and was almost at her, I saw dark sparks on the ground before me and put all my strength and a little bit of magic into leaping into the air and flipping over her, spears of magic shot upwards from the ground towards me but they stopped short. I mimicked Tina and as I was spinning over the witch I shot off a dozen mini holy spells, the pure balls of white light spiraled down at her as i focused on my landing, i softened my landing with a float spell and watched as she blocked the light spells, I didnt give her time to breath though, "fire!" I swept my key through the air in an arc, three tiny sparks bloomed to life before swelling into three full sized firagas and arcing towards her. They impacted with a big burst of flame, and I knew I hit her this time, "enough of your insolence!" There was a sudden burst of violet magic that blew away the fire and smoke, floating there was ultimecia, but she her robe seemed to have taken control, a lion mask sat over the top half of her face, her wings spread wide and two massive ripped arms sat over shed own dainty crossed ones. "Face the power of the strongest force my enemy could imagine!" This was squalls nightmare then... "I'll take it down with you! I may be a princess, but I'll use every drop of power I have to end this!" I ran at her again, launching a thunder spell towards her to provide cover from any more of her blades, she tossed a miniature blue star of light at me and I leapt out of the way as it grew in size and tried to suck me in. "Light!" I called and fired off another burst of holies. I ran at her and used a boulder to jump at her but I suddenly froze in midair, I was trapped, I couldn't move anything! I couldn't even feel my own heart beat! "I am a time witch after all." She gave a long loud laugh and arrows of magic started appearing in the air all around me, dozens, probably a hundred "goodbye princess!" I could do anything to stop this!? I forced all the power I had to rise to the surface and get ready for action the split second I was released from her hold on time, at the same second they all fired I pushed my magic outward in a blast of holies, firagas and watergas. It parried a lot of the arrows, but I was still pummeled, I was blasted into the ground and skipped along the dirt like a stone for a long ways. My armor was utterly shattered, only two strips of metal spared me from becoming a fan service girl so I quickly magicked my way into my regular clothes, and cast a cure spell on myself "you won't break me!" She looked surprised I had survived, but I got ready to unleash everything I had, "release the light!" Every ounce of my strength left me and all I saw was ultimecia ripped apart by the single tiny speck of light that still existed in her black heart. Prospers spell fell apart around me at the force of it and I saw Mickey and ventus in the distance, defeating a young xehanort and a pink haired man I vaguely remembered, just before everything dulled, as if I was frozen in time all over again.

Riku-

I was really freaking pissed off. Especially with the fact I was paired up against that chucklehead the emperor, I wanted to beat the snot out of xehanort, or someone who looked like him, not some make up wearing dick. Not that I didn't want to kick this guys ass too. He twirled his little rod idly, "well, are you ready to settle this? I suggest coming at me with all of your strength, perhaps you will keep me entertained." I wanted to beat the crap out of him. I didn't waste another second, I activated rising wing and flew at him, I was just a few feet and was surprised he hadn't sent out any flare spells, and I wasn't worried about his ground traps because I was airborne, just a second too late though is saw faint orange glimmers in the air around me "air mines!" I tried to twist away from them just as they detonated, I was knocked out of the air by six bursts. I was smacked into the ground, exactly onto another one of his traps, a magic circle drew itself. Out around me as lightning surged through me, I cried out in pain, but he wasn't done yet, now he released a slow moving flare at me, I couldn't move because of the Electricity still surging through my body, it hit me and I was blasted away by an intense burst of darkness and fire. More than a little singed I staggered back to my feet "you're a dick you know that!" I started firing off dark firaga after dark firaga, they collided with his floating air mines clearing the way for me, he launched a couple more flares but I was ready this time, just before I would have been swallowed by one I used time splicer, I couldn't stop him with time magic, but I still appeared behind him and was able to land a quick chain of strike from my keyblade, before teleporting to this side and continuing even when he tried to get away from me and attack, I teleported again and used a light and dark buster, spiraling at him, first with my keyblade cloaked in dark, then in light. I was going to keep up the chain of attacks but he summoned up a magic circle that must have been the exact opposite of a float spell, it didn't hurt but it blew me away from him. "Bastard. Let's go!"

I fell to my knees, finally I had Beat the bastard, first in his normal form, then as a hellish version of himself. And then we a angel looking thing. The fight wasn't even a matter of strength, it was who could take more hits, which apparently was me, but not by much. For every attack I landed on him I could get caught in a new trap, but it was over now, he was out of magic and just one hit would end it, I had burned through my strength and couldn't even manage a cure spell though, how was I supposed to help prosper fight five of them if I was dead on my feet... "Sora... Please we need you!" I threw a strike raid at the emperor and everything stopped.

Prosper-

Lea stood next to me, across from us was xehanort, the cloud of darkness, xande, doga and unei, the cloud was female wearing a red and black cape with the rest of its body covered in red and black markings and scantily clad. It has the same red heart-shaped mark on its forehead, and has long silver hair. Two tentacle monsters emerged from her waist. Doga and xande had the appearance of two young men with short pitch black hair and red eyes wearing robes halfway between what a scholar and a black Mage would wear. Both wielding stardust staffs. Unei had the same eyes and was a delicately built girl in similar attire and wielding nirvana. Xehanort grinned I stomped my foot and caused a tremor through the earth "you bastard, did you honestly think I wouldn't notice?" He looked at me curiously "doga." The wizard raised his staff and was preparing a spell when I spoke again. "Goodbye." I swept my hand out and there was a burst of black light and lea collapsed "he attacked his friend." Unei noted idly before two hearts floated from leas corpse "you think I wouldn't notice? Wouldn't notice that a friend we trusted was a vessel, Lea's hearts been cohabiting all this time hasn't it? Axel was really Amon." The grave look on his face told me I was right, I collected Lea's heart and left the dark one. Before my eyes doga unei and xande withered, "those three were the students of Noah, but they've dead forever, so these are clones right? so you had someone immortal bring them back, amon, the creator of the keyblades in the image of the x-blade, he may be immortal but his body wasn't. I pulled out the picture I found in Lea's file, amons bones. "So when lea and isa waltzed right in you saw the opportunity for a seeker with a new body and you took it, no body no magic though, so there go four seekers all at once. Pretty neat huh? I admit I was confused for a long while about someone as prideful as you using the original war, but I guess since we killed your heartless and nobody you were pretty desperate for recruits" "Insolent child." His guardian rose up behind him surprising me before dashing at me, that's when mason appeared from the shadows still in his guardian form and wrestled the black guardian to the ground, "raze." A second burst of magic, killed both, masons heart drifted towards me before becoming a heartless again "good job, I'm sorry I had to do that to you." "I forgive you." I recollected him and started taking confident strides towards xehanort "if masons back, sora is too, which means the fighting is just about over. I released the spacial magic separating us and what I saw shocked me, twelve dark hearts and seven light ones, I collected eraqus' but the remaining hearts became pillars of light and punched into the ground and erupted as pillars of light and dark." I sighed and bit my lip "I knew it... You didn't need one side or the other to win you just needed them all on the same world and ready to fight." He nodded and smirked "now all I have to do is dispose of you and the chi-blade will be complete." I felt tears boil up in my eyes and looked around at the pillars of light and darkness, and in the distance I could see sora fighting the last of the seekers, kefka "it's time to end this, cloud of darkness!" She floated towards me "yes child?" Her smirk was positively satanic. I suspected she was the primordial dark deity that had put the first war into motion "i hold the heart of the last world in the universe, will you make a deal with me?" "What would you ask?" "Destroy time." She smirked and nodded "the deal is struck, I will allow you to finish up business." With that she disappeared, and everything started going dark. "Sora! End him now!" Kefka suddenly froze and sora took the opportunity, the clown died with a cackle and just before the darkness settling over the graveyard became absolute there was a flash of white light that rivaled bahamut's megaflare. When everything resolidified the terrain was polished flat, and I could barely make out xehanort on the ground not far from me, and dead center was the chi blade, I stood and rubbed at my blurry eyes, my eyesight had gone from perfect to dismal, out of curiosity I ran my tongue over my canines, back to normal, well at least I know it worked. I walked up to the x-blade and drew it from the ground, damn heavy but my body was still that if a seventeen year old, I looked over at xehanort who was shaking on the ground, if he was old before he was decrepit now, "damn, that's the thing about magical contracts, they're self fulfilling and self neutralizing trading the heart of a world, to destroy the fabric of time, but no time no magic, and if there's no magic then I didn't have the world to trade did I? The same applies to you, just how old are you xehanort? Three hundred? Four? You were this age when eraqus met you as a child, before you body hopped into that kid from destiny island, you've been body hopping and using magic to prolong yourself for so long your nothing but a breathing corpse." He wheezed trying to argue, I wiped at my eyes as I looked down at the x-blade "it's all over now. For you. I won't be restoring the worlds. Not here, you will spend the rest of eternity here, on a barren rock where time doesn't flow, and when the cloud builds up her strength enough to swallow this world and return it to the void, I'm sure she'll have planned out a fitting end to you. As for me, kingdom hearts is waiting, and I have more than a few words to have with the god who created this cosmos, who created monsters like you, darkness, and all of the junk that ruined our worlds. You wanted to be the new god, which would make me the devil huh, so my second order of business will be to kill the old one too." "W-wait! P-please! Take me with you!" He begged in barely audible gasps "burn in hell creep." I raised the key and teleporting to a different universe was completely different from teleporting to a different world.

When I opened my eyes again I was in a palace, marble busts red tapestries gold leaf and has reliefs, statues of heavenly angels smiting demons. And standing in front of me was lightning "congratu-fucking-lations, you destroyed the universe." I couldn't handle it any more, I collapsed to my knees and started sobbing.

"So is this kingdom hearts?" Lightning nodded, "this is the all seeing eye, the physical manifestation of kingdom hearts there is also the ark where we met before, zenith bound and a few other places. What will you do now?" "Gods here isn't he?" "The one responsible for your universe? Correct, he rests in cosmogenesis." "Then I'll go there and I'll kill him, I'm here aren't i? I'm behind death, I don't care if it takes a hundred years, I'll kill the bastard. And then I'll bring everyone back." Lightning sighed "you sound just like lightning." "Huh?" I looked at her for clarity and she nodded "my name is mwynn, I have taken on the likeness of a woman much like you, who fought and recreated her universe, to those of us... Who moved beyond our own, we can move freely, there are others, here, even now, this cycle has repeated itself before, and will do it again." "Is that all there is destruction and rebirth? Am I gonna have to..." She looked at me and nodded "if your plan is to defeat bhunhivelze, even if you create a godless universe, you will end up here again." I nodded gravely "is it an absolute? That the universe has to be destroyed so that the new pone can be born? That no matter what else I do it will always end like this?" "It's the self fulfilling destiny of the universe, there are options though..." I managed to call myself enough to follow her down a corridor to my left, and what I found there was terrifying "these are other devils, other gods, some choose to just fade, others chose to come here and love out eternity, others even put themselves through rebirth." The room was dimly lit with a blue light, there were thrones all around, and scattered around them all asleep were people, I saw lightning and a silver haired boy, i saw a young man and woman with silver hair, a goddess with flaxen hair and a billowy white dress and a demon with red horns a twisted form and wings, there was even a moogle there, "all of these people are gods or god slayers?" She nodded "this is the seat of rest, should you chose you could always come here to numb your pain." "By what, falling asleep, falling into darkness just to numb myself? That's unacceptable... I won't... Even if I'm immortal I won't waste the gift that was given to me, I need to recreate magic, can you help me?" Mwynn nodded, "whatever I can do, though what is your plan? Until you create the new cosmos you are bound by the laws of your old one, you made a deal with the cloud of darkness, an ancient destroyer and destroyed magic by destroying time, there are suits of armor and swords all around, but I doubt you could use those to defeat bhunhivelze." I nodded in agreement "she's a stinker that one, the power to destroy time comes at a big price, she stole every drop of magic power in the entire universe to do it, so without time everyone is trapped in that state, that state being having no magic power left, but it may be gone now but I wasn't perfectly human the entire time, when lightning helped me reborn she made me a vampire to get me up and going again, which leads me to my point, monsters don't have hearts or souls now do they, they don't come to kingdom hearts they go someplace else, they have their own time and their own magic, I had some of that as a vampire, so all I have to do is do that again." She nodded understanding apparently "you'll figure out a way to become a monster?" I nodded "it's been a practice before, I read about it a long long time ago. Blue mages, too bad, just when I got my pretty blue eyes back."

"There are libraries upstairs if that would help you?" I shook my head "no, what I need is monsters, are there any places on kingdom hearts that are infested?" She shook her head "no, but there are the hearts of several worlds here, it would not be beyond my power to restore one, with a place for them to live monsters would spawn."

I didn't know the name of the world she had restored for me, all I knew is that million monsters was hard. Like impossibly hard, I had borrowed a sword and was taking down small prey like goblins I had tried to use the x-blade but I still wasn't a keyblade wielder, it weighed a thousand pounds to me and would just dismiss itself, the first day I had tried going after a behemoth, I got gutted like a fish, this was going to be a long, slow process. I felt like I could have snapped these monsters in half so easily when I had my magic, but without it just taking down small monsters and collecting their cores was harder than anything I had ever done, without my magic woulda that would have been almost meaningless meant I either had to treat myself whenever I was safe from monsters or flee back to the all seeing eye to be healed. Either way I died, a lot. The worst part was that I had no sense of time, the days and nights on the world had been so long that I couldn't actually tell if I had been on them for days or hours, was it like gaia's rest where day and night weren't proportionate? I tried to count out time for myself by making tallies in the eye, but whenever I left to fight monsters and returned they would be gone, "come on! You little bastards! I won't keep them waiting for you!"

"Will that be enough?" Mwynn asked over my shoulder and I nodded "hopefully, these are all from goblins, the amount of magic I would actually gain from it if this works should be so small it will only let me start hunting one step up in the food chain." She nodded and I looked at the tall mound of small black gems sitting in front of me, monsters have cores, these gems they grow around them with energy provided from whatever drove the monsters system of rebirth, but if you collected them they schools contain some of it's power. I steeled myself, in all truth I was aware this would probably hurt worse than dying, but I would have to go for it if I was ever going to defeat bhunhivelze. I dug my hands into the pile and shoved some into May mouth and forced myself to chew on them as they shattered and splintered in my mouth.

Mwynn wouldn't tell me how much time had passed according to her, I knew she could but she just told me it was best not to dwell on it... So I did all I could do kept hunting, kobolds, lobos, slowly working up the food chain, I don't remember when dying stopped hurting, but the harder I fought and the more I kept trying the closer I was to setting things right...

100-

I tried to fight the god... I can't even remember it, probably his doing, to make sure I didn't have the chance to develop a strategy for my next attempt. And then one day I returned from hunting and instead of mwynn it was a girl from the seat of rest, the porcelain skin and a Snow White bob cut wearing a white dress with gold and silver adornments "my name is lessica, mwynn woke me to assist you whenever I can in her stead, I apologize, but she needed a respite from her duties."

300-

Another failed attempt, Darwin and lessica tried to console me, but the knowledge that all off efforts had failed, and I didn't even know how to start over or what I had done wrong was infuriating. I kept fighting, becoming more and more in tune with my 'inner monster' slowly I was becoming a blue Mage, though I had to wonder, just how long was this taking? That was when I got the surprise of my life, I visited the seat of rest I hadn't seen him before, but he must have been there, it was mason. Not the cuddly heartless, no this was his real form. His real body, the silver haired knight in blue and gold armor, "he was on of the few that opted for rebirth" lessica told me, I had come to accept this fact fairly easily, when he was reborn he lost all of his old memories until he would die again, but in our old universe he had become a heartless, I wondered how much of his personality was the same, was he similar or different to this so called warrior of light? How much of a coincidence was it that someone who had found themselves in a position like mine who knows how many eons and universe in the past had helped me so much, had been my friend and been so close to me.

500-

Lightning had awoken to see me off for my third confrontation "remember, I didn't bring you back to life so you could trip at the ten yard line, give it your all, finish what I couldn't, I didn't know the truth of the cycle, I accept I nodded, "and prosper, if you lose you'll forget this anyway, but here, this is how long you've been here." She red the universe he had created for me and was bound by his rules all over again, end him." She slipped a peice of paper into my pocket "don't open it unless you win." She shoved me though the doors and I gave her a small but somewhat confident smile. Bhunhivelze wasn't a Pretty sight he was metallic humanoid with androgynous facial features, azure eyes set against a white mask-like veneer with gold inlay, purple robes checkered, and four pairs of angelic wings. The wings are juxtaposed by horns and an ornate crown-like adornment hovers between them. He looked like a demon had been created by Faberge. The ground of cosmogenesis was made up of just a plane made from his checkered robe, above and below was the constant swirling mass of godly material of the cosmos, planets and galaxies being birthed and destroyed in one swirling movement all around us. He wielded a double ended scythe with a demons face at one end and an angels at the other "come again have we my adversary?" "You can always count on me coming here to whoop your ass." "I sense petulance and blasphemy." "You're no god of mine! You were born and created like everyone else. You aren't god!" "Humorous, your defiant speech it almost identical in all of your attempts." "Shut up!" I leapt into action dashing towards him and unleashing blade dance when I was in range. Twenty shimmering swords manifested in mid air around me and spun and slashed at him, blue magic only allowed me to imitate what I had seen monsters so but I hoped it would be enough. "Fool!" He blasted me with an element spell, aero, blizzard fire and thunder hitting me all at once, "life stealer!" I acted a vampire ability and an orb of red lich appeared around me draining power from all around me to heal me as I kept fighting "angel whisper!" Illusory Cherubs floated around me as I cast the healing spell, it was amazingly efficient for a spell that granted reraise. Matra magic!" Blue starlike projectiles formed all around me and dashed at the entity exploding all around him and dealing damage, he retaliated with a powerful sweep of his at the which would have cleaved me in two until I parried with a mighty guard, the shield meant to withstand almost anything shattered immediately after reflecting the weapon. "Aqua lung!" I leapt back and sucked as much air as I could into my lungs before releasing it with a roar as blasts of water magic flew from me at him, i kept moving, kept on the offensive keeping at a distance for now "magic breath!" Another roar attack, I sucked in air and released it in a massive plume of bubbles containing fire ice and lightning magic. He gave a roar of pain but with a spin of double deity cleared the smoke so he could we me again properly, he shot a hand towards me and I was blasted with the strongest aeroga spell I had ever seenX if caught me and sent me shooting up into the air spinning uncontrolably as it slashed at me all the way, "twister!" I released a blast of wind magic counterclockwise to his aeroga destroying his storm and revealing me almost a hundred feet in the air above him, "dark skies!" The spell was insanely close to meteor, a jagged many pro test star of her black metal appeared below my feet, and I rose it down like a meteor until we crashed into bhunhivelze, the impact releasing a massive hurt of black magic, when it faded though he was moving again, launching a flare from his left hand, I ran from it and right into hai trap getting cleaved in half by his scythe which was swinging towards me from behind, angel whisper did it's job though and I was healed and put back together again and continued my assault. Using elemental breath attacks from dragons, eye based attacks from arhiman and Cyclopes, technique after technique used by monsters until he cast doom on me, "damn... Really? Did I look like I wanted a timer? Mind blast!" I raised my hands and focused on him and bolts of violet lightning ran across him damaging and paralyzingly him "roulette!" Dozens of cards glowing with red magic appeared in the air around me and dashing towards him and exploding on impact I double cast the spell before dashing in close "bro kin punch!" My fists glowed with a coppery light as I barraged the stunned god with my fist, he regained his movement and with a powerful beat of his wings blew me back, and spun his scythe casting Almagest towards me. "Diamond hide!" My body became one solid diamond and the light magic from the Almagest collided with me and exploded outward in refracted days in all directions without damaging me at all. I prepared to counter attack when he sprouted more wings, retracted his arms and the scythe spun around his middle like a deadly hula hoop. " great how many times are you going to change form!"

"It's a scythe not a chainsaw!" I sighed as I cast white wind to heal myself up after reviving again, "nova!" I used all of my energy to call down a massive blast of non elemental energy that swallowed up almost everything in sight, and that's when I knew I landed a clean perfect hit, I heard a shattering noise over the roar of my own explosion. I had destroyed his scythe "those were gods... Those were gods he made... If I can destroy them I can destroy him!" I used converter to change some of my health into magical power, "it's time... I need you... All of you... Just lend me your strength." My pendant glowed with a massive amount of power as every last heart in the old worlds stirred "I'm sorry sora... I'm not like you, I just don't have enough friends to be strong enough to beat him, but I have something else, hate, and anger, and unbridled rage, all of you know that too! Lend it to me! All of it!" I summoned the x-blade, my body shaking, not with the effort of wielding it, my body was filling up with all the negative emotions of every heart I had captured, every bit of rage and despair. I had learned this from the tonberry king, he would channel all emotions of all of the tonberries that had fallen in battle and use it as power, all channeled into one knife, he was a monster, but there isn't a reason I know that it couldn't be done with human emotions, and something much much stronger than a knife. "Insolence, I shall put you in your place." "Never again! I won't be a pawn in someone else's game anymore! Not yen sids! Not xehanort's! And never yours!" I ran at him his spells rolling off the blood red aura of hate that enveloped me I reached bhunhivelze and struck, swinging the key blade with all my strength cleaving him in half from shoulder to hip, there was a blast of light and everything faded away.

I guess that was it, there was nothing left, no sensation no nothing, the only thing I had to orient myself by was a glowing crystal right before me I raised my hand to touch it's shimmering surface and saw my hand, I was nothing more than a translucent shadow, all I could see was the darkness of my own heart, it made sense, the only thing that could be brought from the old to the new would be the only things that transcended it all, hearts. I understood it all now, darkness cannot exist without light, because we are darkness, it's true, we are but shadows, our individual lives and being are just the shadows cast by the light of all our hearts, and kingdom hearts and the all seeing eye are just the shadows of all of our hearts as one, the true light, surrounded and swallowed by the darkness, but that's who we are, if there is light in darkness then darkness must be the light to something even darker, even the darkest darkness isn't evil, it's just something tangible, so it can be used in a way light just can't, it wasn't evil, it was just able to be used for it, the same evil that infected the hearts of people like xehanort, was just evil because of how dark the shadow of their hearts was, and not the darkness itself, our world was never black and white, not me, or bhunhivelze or even mwynn belonged to either of those truths, we were all just varying degrees of shadow, we were shadows of our hearts, heartless shadows of us, which gave me hope, that there was still someone watching over me, it just made it easier. "I'm ready... Please..." The crystal responded with a pulsing glow before shattering, and stars and galaxies and nebulas exploded outward, a new cosmos born from a single point. I began to craft the laws of an entirely new universe.

I had restored the worlds, deciding they were best off separate but I needed to change something, something to tie them together; an insurance policy against people like xehanort. So I pulled hundreds of people from my pendant, people who had died and become heartless, they appeared before me, "I have a favor to ask of all of you, there needs to be someone to keep any eye out for people, to be there for them when they turn to the darkness, there is a fairy godmother I know, who rescued a princess from despair, I would ask all of you to do the same, to help people when they need it the most, and I know it's a lot to ask, of course you could chose to be reborn any time you wanted, I too... I hope to live out the rest of my days before returning and joining all of you..." I was surprised that every last one of them agreed and more surprised when I saw a familiar face, demyx, I must have captured his heart at some point when hunting heartless, if someone who had been on the organization could have a heart so full of light they couldn't be all bad?"

Two lightning's stood next to me as I looked down upon the new universe about to awake, the real one and mwynn. those who had been leading their lives would wake as if nothing had changed, though I hoped everything had. That being in this new cosmos would be for the better. "You do know, that you will be erased from all of their memories except for those in the x-blade, don't you?" I nodded "I didn't do this for recognition, I did this hoping everyone would get to lead a normal life, xehanort's gone for good, the seekers will be reborn, and hopefully the measures I've put in place will keep them from turning to the dark, and the seven lights will be with me." "You had more friends than just the seven, people who loved you, cared about you, like the warrior of light." "You mean mason? Well he'll forget me whether he goes on as a heartless or is reborn, but in the end he'll remember me when we both reach kingdom heart again, and besides, you can never truly forget someone, even if the memories are gone, the string that tied them to you will still be there even if they don't know I leads to you, you'll always have a place in their heart, and that's enough for me..." "I would say you were wise beyond your years, but the number seems to be proportionate." I laughed at that, I still didn't know how old I was chronologically, "why do you want me to know lightning?" "Not for yourself, but for those who'll remember you, so they can know your sacrifice." I nodded "it'll be great to know what time is again, I can't wait to see a sunrise, but I don't really think it matters how long this was, I would do it again." "Are you sure you want to allow keyblades to continue existing?" I shrugged "Just because light and darkness will be balanced for a while because of the new universe doesn't mean we won't still need heroes, and inadvertently I think my monster rampage made the monsters really angry, the average monster population is a lot higher than it was, but monsters don't scare me, they act out of survival, it's people who scare me." I raised the x blade and il racks ran along it before it shattered seven hearts full of light, and thirteen hearts steeped in darkness, my arm out and the hearts flew off towards where I wanted them to be" "you did well." I shook my head "we'll see, im being selfish aren't i? Going home instead of keeping watch over my cosmos?" "There will be eons for that's later, you've earned yourself some rest." "Thank you..."

"Lea wait up you jerk!" "Like hell I will! Scrooge is having a sale!" "Look out!" It was too late though, lea went crashing into a young woman tending to her flower garden. Is a caught up and started apologizing instantly "I'm sorry ma'am, he never looks where he's going?" The young woman laughed "it's alright, have fun you two." The two nodded and ran off the blue haired youth scolding the red head." As they ran past cid walked up the the flower girl "aerith? What's the matter? Watcha crying about?" She shook hersf and rubbed at her eyes "that's just it! I don't know? It feels like I've forgotten something, and I'm grasping for it but I just can't reach it... I hope their okay though." "They? You think you forgot someone?"

"Hey where's ven?" Terra questioned aqua before pressing a kiss to her cheek " I wouldn't know, I think he went to visit Tina, I think someone's got a crush." "You two are such gossips" eraqus laughed coming up from behind them. "Speaking of looking for someone how do you think he's doing?"

Authors note: (if you actually stuck with those story for this long I'll love you forever! But to make the last scene count go to you tube and play our fandom Anthony simple and clean, then continue reading)

Riku-

I shot up in a cold sweat, "my room... How am I here..." I looked around it was still dark outside but slowly lightening, I raised my hand and summoned my key, it wasn't a dream or anything..." I yanked on my clothes and leapt out the window running towards sora's house to find kairi already there dragging a still half sleeping sora out of his house "come on! To the island!"

I paddled faster and faster as the sky started to lighten, sora and kairi keeping pace as we rowed for the island. As soon as the bow hit same I leapt out and ran for our stretch of beach, kairi running alongside me, and we could see him, prosper was standing there in knee deep water watching as the sun rose just above the horizon. "Prop!" He turned and grinned from ear to ear despite crying at the same time, he was clutching a slip of paper in one hand "hey, long time no see huh?"


End file.
